jLIBRARY  I 

I        UNIVERSITY  OF  I 

I            CALIFORNIA  J 

I      SAN  DIEGO  1 


Digitized  by  tlie  Internet  Arcliive 

in  2007  witli  funding  from 

Microsoft  Corporation 


littp://www.arcli  ive.org/details/becauseiamgermanOOferniala 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 


BECAUSE 
I  AM  A  GERMAN 


BY 

HERMANN  FERNAU 


EDITED   WITH   AN  INTRODUCTION 
BY 

T.  W.  ROLLESTON 


AUTHORIZED  TRANSLATION  FROM  THE  GERMAN 


NEW  YORK 
E.  P.  DUTTON  &  COMPANY 

681  FIFTH  AVENUE 


COPTBIOHT,  1916, 
BY 

E.  P.  DUTTON  &  CX)MPANY 


PRINTED  IN  THE  V.  S.  A. 


CONTENTS 


PAOB 


Introduction 7 

CHAPTKB 

1 23 

II 33 

III 53 

IV 93 

V 155 


INTEODUCTION 

A  WEiTEE  who  publicly  takes  part  against 
his  own  country  when  it  is  engaged  in  a 
fierce  struggle  against  hostile  Powers  does 
so  at  a  terrible  risk,  a  risk  of  more  than 
life.  The  prosperity,  nay,  the  very  endur- 
ance, of  any  organised  community  depends 
on  the  loyalty  of  its  members  to  the  com- 
mon ideals  and  the  common  good  of  the  so- 
ciety as  a  whole.  The  more  gravely  these 
ideals  and  interests  seem  to  be  imperilled,  the 
deeper  and  more  dangerous  becomes  the  re- 
sponsibility of  those  who  in  any  way  seem  to 
make  common  cause  with  the  foe.  It  is  not 
only  natural  and  inevitable,  it  is  also  just  and 
right,  that  they  should  be  held  sternly  to  ac- 
count, and  that  the  sincerity  and  purity  of 
their  motives  should  be  probed  to  the  utter- 

1 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

most.  Nor  "will  even  the  purest  of  intentions 
serve  to  protect  them  against  the  stigma  of 
dishonour  if  they  are  shown  to  be  moved  by 
no  earnest  and  reasoned  conviction,  but 
merely  by  that  perversity,  levity,  or  exag- 
gerated individualism  which  may  lead  some 
minds  that  shine  harmlessly  in  the  everyday 
tournament  of  intellectual  forces  to  throw 
themselves  into  fatal  opposition  to  some  pro- 
found national  impulse  which  mere  intellect 
could  never  have  created,  and  cannot  even 
comprehend. 

Yet  no  one  can  deny  that  crises  may  come, 
and  have  come  again  and  again  in  history 
from  the  time  of  Micaiah  the  son  of  Imla  to 
that  of  Edmund  Burke,  when  to  prophesy 
w  smooth  things  to  a  warring  people  is  the 
worst  of  betrayals,  and  to  rebuke  its  mad- 
ness and  passion  the  truest  loyalty.  Then  a 
man  to  whom  a  vision  of  the  truth  has  been 
given  must  take  his  life  in  his  hand  and 
speak  his  mind,  confident  that  he  will  be  jus- 
tified by  time  and  reason,  and,  above  all,  by 

8 


INTRODUCTION 

Ihis  own  conscience.  Germany  has  prodnced 
/such  men.  In  this  little  book  one  of  them  is 
/  made  known  to  the  English-speaking  world. 
/  They  have  not  written  against  Germany.  It 
I  is  precisely  because  they  are  loyal  to  Ger- 
many and  love  the  better  part  of  their  coun- 
try's complex  being  that  they  have  dared  to 
affront  the  enormous  and  unscrupulous  pow- 
er represented  by  the  despotic  authority  and 
the  regimented  intellect  of  that  country  in 
the  present  day.  They  have  written  for  Ger- 
mans, and  do  not  seek  the  praises  of  those 
who  are  in  arms  against  Germany.  In  the 
whole  of  this  book  there  is  not  one  unworthy 
line  of  adulation  such  as  might  serve  to  win 
favour  for  it  in  the  camps  of  the  Allies.  This 
has  not  saved  the  author's  character  or  his 
right  of  free  speech  in  Germany.  His  book 
had  only  been  published  three  weeks  when  it 
was  confiscated  and  all  further  sales  pro- 
hibited. Even  in  Switzerland  it  has  been 
thought  necessary  to  safeguard  the  neutrality 
of  that  country  by  forbidding  it  to  be  placed 

9 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

publicly  on  sale.  Yet  though  no  one  in  Ger- 
many may  read  this  book,  anyone  may  de- 
nounce it  and  slander  its  author.  One  section 
of  the  German  Press  declares  him  to  be  iden- 
tical with  the  ** German  scoundrel'*  who 
wrote  "  J 'Accuse.  **  ^  Another  makes  him 
out  to  be  a  Polish  Jew,  now  living  in  Paris  in 
the  pay  of  the  French  Government.  He  is 
neither  Pole  nor  Jew,  but  a  Prussian  subject 
of  German  stock,  bom  in  Breslau,  where  he 
lived  up  to  the  age  of  twenty-one.  He  was 
afterwards — ^like  many  others  of  his  country- 
men— domiciled  in  Paris,  where  he  wrote  his 
first  books,  but  his  German  nationality  was 
sufficiently  clear  to  oblige  him  to  quit  that 
city  on  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  and  he  is  now 
living  in  Switzerland.  From  this  refuge  he 
writes,  not  in  the  service  of  any  of  the  Gov- 
ernments which  are  now  contending  around 
him,  but  for  the  sake  of  an  idea — an  idea 

*The  publishers  of  "J 'Accuse,"  Messrs.  Payot  et  Cie, 
Lausanne,  have  done  this  absurd  imputation  the  honoiir  of 
formally  denying  it. 

10 


INTRODUCTION 

which,  as  he  is  well  aware,  is  not  served  with 
whole-hearted  devotion  in  any  modern  State. 
That  idea  of  liberty,  justice,  the  humane  and 
rational  development  of  political,  moral, 
social,  and  intellectual  life  in  many  free  cen- 
tres, call  them  nations,  or  federated  commu- 
nities, or  what  one  will,  is  more  openly  and 
dangerously  threatened  by  Germany  at  the 
present  moment  than  it  has  ever  before  been 
in  the  history  of  the  world.  The  friends  of 
this  idea  are  necessarily  the  enemies  of  Ger- 
many so  long  as  her  organised  force  is 
wielded  under  the  influence  of  a  poisonous 
delusion.  We  are  fighting  to  protect  our- 
selves, and  to  win  peace  and  breathing-space 
for  the  gradual  realisation  in  practice  of  the 
ideas  which  we  cherish.  They  are  ideas  on 
which  Herr  Femau  has  already  laid  stress 
in  the  work  on  the  democracy  of  France 
which  he  published  before  the  outbreak  of  the 
war.  We  do  not  pretend  to  have  achieved 
our  ideals  already.  Nor  do  we  make  any  Tar- 
tuffian  pretences  of  doing  battle  for  the  true 

11 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

welfare  of  the  German  people.  Yet,  in  sober 
truth,  to  eradicate  the  disease  called  Prus- 
sianism  may,  unless  we  are  compelled  to 
make  the  surgery  more  terrible  and  destruc- 
tive than  it  need  be,  set  free  a  deeply  buried, 
blind,  at  present  almost  inarticulate  Ger- 
many, which,  when  it  opens  its  eyes  and  feels 
its  strength,  will  recognise  that  its  worst 
enemies  were  not  those  who  now  face  it  along 
a  thousand  miles  of  steel  and  flame. 

The  symptoms  of  the  existence  of  this  hid- 
den and  now  helpless  Germany  are  not  easily 
made  manifest  to  the  English  or  to  any  of 
the  Allied  peoples  in  their  present  temper. 
That  is  as  it  should  be.  We  are  at  war;  we 
have  been  plunged  into  a  struggle  of  the  ut- 
most desperation,  and  one  of  which  the  issue 
is  still  uncertain.  The  masses  on  both  sides 
cannot  see  beyond  the  enemy's  trenches,  and 
it  is  better  for  the  present  that  they  should 
not.  But  the  thinker  and  the  observer  have 
also  their  part  to  play;  they  have  to  judge 
the  present  situation  on  the  basis  of  long 

12 


INTRODUCTION 

experience  gathered  under  more  normal  con- 
ditions of  life.  To  those  who  have  known 
Germany,  and  the  manner  in  which  the  spirit 
of  the  nation  has  expressed  itself  in  litera/- 
ture  for  many  years  back,  the  events  of  the 
War  have  brought  a  shock  of  astonishment 
and  disgust  which  has  found  memorable  ex- 
pression in  Eomain  Rolland's  famous  letter 
to  Gerhart  Hauptmann.  For  just  as  in  the. 
Middle  Ages,  when  the  Church,  in  its  vain 
and  disastrous  conflict  with  science  and  free 
thought,  tried  to  force  the  intellect  of  man- 
kind to  move  in  prescribed  channels  to  an 
appointed  end,  so  the  Prussian  system,  which 
is  simply  Vaticanism  in  the  secular  sphere, 
has  striven  with  all  the  force  at  its  command 
to  make  the  German  intellect  subservient  to 
the  ends  of  the  State,  as  those  ends  were 
conceived  by  the  Prussian  soldier,  the  Prus- 
sian bureaucrat,  the  Prussian  reigning  dy- 
nasty. And,  again,  just  as  the  great  tumultu- 
ous tide  of  mediaeval  literature  was  always  in 
revolt  against  the  limits  imposed  on  it,  al- 

13 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

ways  seeking  and  finding  new  channels,  al- 
ways sapping  the  dams  and  barriers  raised 
by  either  Church  or  State,  so  in  modem  Ger- 
many, ever  since  the  Prussian  domination 
began  in  1815,  literature — that  is,  creative 
literature,  not  the  literature  of  the  regi- 
mented Professors  in  their  enslaved  Univer- 
sities— has  been  in  revolt  against  it,  and  has 
represented,  more  or  less,  the  free  conscience 
and  the  free  intellect  of  the  country.  Few 
English  readers  know  much  about  this  litera- 
ture, or  have  any  idea  of  the  extent  to  which 
the  modem  German  Reich  and  all  its  ways 
and  works  have  been  scorned  and  denounced 
in  it.  Sometimes  the  hostility  has  been  di- 
rect and  open,  sometimes,  as  in  the  case  of 
Hauptmann,  it  has  taken  subtler  forms,  and 
has  painted  with  terrible  realism  the  cancer- 
ous vices  that  underlie  the  mechanical  organi- 
sation which  presents  so  imposing  an  aspect 
to  the  outside  view.  As  an  example  of  the 
lengths  to  which  this  criticism  has  gone,  let 
me  quote  a  passage  from  a  brilliant  novelist 

14 


INTRODUCTION 

and  essayist,  Kurt  Martens,  who,  in  casting 
a  regretful  glance  back  to  the  days  when 
Germany  was  a  collection  of  small  States, 
writes : — 

"It  is  true  that  in  politics  and  economics  there 
was  then  little  to  swagger  about,  but  swaggering 
was  not  then  in  any  case  a  German  trait.  Capital- 
ism and  militarism  were  not  then  even  in  the  hob- 
bledehoy period ;  they  were  but  feeding  up  for  it  as 
apple-cheeked  urchins.  The  German  citizen  went 
soberly  and  considerately  about  his  business,  talked 
harmless  politics  with  his  neighbours,  and  sang  in 
the  evening  his  beautiful  and  dreamy  old  songs. 
The  ringing  trichord  made  up  by  the  voices  of  the 
drill-sergeant,  the  petty  official,  and  the  commercial 
traveller  had  not  then  become,  as  it  has  since  grad- 
ually done,  the  fanfare  of  the  new  German  nation. 
"We  had  then  an  aristocracy  with  aristocratic  prin- 
ciples and  forms  of  life,  and  a  corps  of  officers 
mainly  recruited  from  this  aristocracy ;  we  had  also 
a  patrician  class  in  trade  and  commerce,  and  patri- 
cians of  culture  who  understood  the  temperate 
enjoyment  of  life.  In  Germany  culture  was  then 
indigenous;  Germany  had  style.    Now,  Germany  is 

15 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

an  arsenal,  a  stock  exchange,  a  madhouse,  a  mon- 
ster hotel. "» 

Could  any  critic  of  Germany  from  the 
Allies*  side  to-day  have  delivered  a  shrewder 
thrust  at  modem  German  imperialism  than 
this  German  writer  did  six  years  ago  ?  Might 
one  not  have  predicted  that  a  Power  which 
could  be  truly  described  in  these  terms  would 
be  bound  either  to  lower  the  ethical  standards 
of  civilisation,  or  to  perish  in  some  great 
catastrophe  ? 

And  Martens  did  not  stand  alone.  His 
attitude  was  fairly  representative  of  his 
whole  class,  the  poets,  play-writers,  and  nov- 
elists of  modem  Germany.  But  where  were 
they,  and  in  what  kind  of  tones  did  they 
speak,  when  the  German  Empire  actually 
brought  forth  the  very  fruits  which  alone 
could  grow  from  such  an  organism  as  they 
had  painted?  This  is  the  saddest  and  most 
hopeless  feature  of  the  whole  wretched  story. 

■"Literatur  in  Deutschland, "  by  Kurt  Martens,  1910. 

16 


INTRODUCTION 

They  made,  all  the  distinguished  names 
among  them,  common  cause  with  their  own 
worst  enemy,  the  enemy  of  that  better  and 
truer  Germany  whose  interests  there  were 
none  to  understand  and  to  protect  except 
themselves.  They  betrayed  the  Germany  of 
their  ideal  for  the  Germany  of  the  Prussian 
war-lord.  They  showed  that  the  poison  of 
Prussianism  had  entered  into  the  very  soul 
of  the  nation — for  they  are  its  soul.  Their 
ordeal  was  a  hard  one,  let  it  be  granted; 
but  how  is  the  spirit  to  be  tried  unless  the 
ordeal  be  hard?  The  country  was  suddenly 
ringed  round  with  foes — ^it  was  true  that  they 
were  foes  who  had  been  driven  to  arms,  as 
they  were  plainly  intended  to  be  (with  the 
exception  of  England),  by  the  Austro-Ger- 
man  ultimatum  to  Serbia ;  yet  the  position  of 
a  patriotic  German  who  did  not  wish  to  see 
his  country  led  into  a  desperate  adventure 
by  a  military  autocracy  was  undeniably  a 
difficult  one.  Still,  they  might  at  least  have 
remained  significantly  silent.    But  they  were 

17 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

not  silent — they  joined  in  the  mad  chorus  of 
greed  and  battle-fury ;  and  when  Hauptmann 
actually  condoned,  in  plain  terms,  the  flagrant 
perfidy  and  brutality  of  the  invasion  of  Bel- 
gium he  branded  not  only  himself  but  his 
whole  class  with  an  inexpiable  stain.  Ger- 
many had  often  in  history  been  betrayed  by 
her  own  sons,  but  the  betrayers  were  soldiers, 
or  kings,  or  statesmen,  and  what  they  yielded 
was  German  soil.  Never  before  had  she 
suffered  in  interests  so  sacred  as  those  which 
Hauptmann  and  his  fellows,  who  alone  had 
the  power  to  defend  or  to  sacrifice  them, 
flung  into  the  mire  before  the  feet  of  the 
German  Emperor. 

This,  as  I  have  said,  is  the  most  shocking 
feature  of  the  whole  transaction.  It  seems 
at  first  sight  to  leave  no  hope  of  the  emer- 
gence of  a  nobler  Germany  from  the  present 
conflict.  And  yet  matters  are  not  altogether 
so  bad  as  they  might  seem.  The  shame  has 
been  much  greater  and  blacker  than  one  who 
had  studied  the  currents  of  thought  in  modem 

18 


INTRODUCTION 

Germany  could  have  expected,  but  one  must 
not  forget  how  the  author  of  *'J'Accuse," 
the  author  of  the  present  masterly  and  vig- 
orous little  book,  and  writers  like  Hermann 
Hesse,  Annette  Kolb,  and  Wilhelm  Herzog, 
have  in  various  ways  striven  to  act  in  the 
spirit  of  the  noble  words  prefixed  by  RoUand 
to  his  recent  volume  of  collected  studies  on 
the  war.^  How  much  they  really  stand  for 
in  Germany  we  cannot  yet  discern.  At  any 
rate,  they  have  done  what  in  them  lies  to 
redeem  their  country's  honour,  and  if  they 
are  now  proscribed  and  calumniated,  they  are 
suffering,  as  Femau  points  out  in  a  passage 
of  penetrating  truth,  what  was  suffered  in 
their  time  by  the  very  spirits  whom  modern 
Germany  most  professes  to  revere.  German 
soldiers  now  go  to  battle  singing  **Deutsch- 

*"A  great  nation  assailed  by  war  has  not  only  its  fron- 
tiers to  protect:  it  must  also  protect  its  good  sense.  It 
must  protect  itself  from  the  hallucinations,  injustices,  and 
follies  which  the  plague  lets  loose.  To  each  his  part :  to  the 
armies  the  protection  of  the  soil  of  their  native  land;  to 
the  thinkers  the  defence  of  its  thought. ' ' — '  *  Above  the  Bat- 
tle," by  Eomain  Rolland,  p.  15. 

19 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

land  iiber  Alles.'^  The  author  of  that  song 
was  dismissed  from  his  professorship  and  for 
six  years  hunted  from  one  German  State  to 
another  because  he  had  published  a  volume 
of  songs  which  were  not  altogether  to  the 
taste  of  the  Prussian  authorities  of  his  day. 
Time  has  brought  its  revenges,  and  has  many 
more  to  bring.  Meantime,  let  us  take  note 
of  the  existence  of  such  writings  as  that 
which  is  here  presented  to  English  readers. 
It  is  worth  attention  not  only  for  the  spirit 
in  which  it  is  written,  but  as  a  study  of  the 
circumstances  under  which  the  World- War 
broke  out.  For  a  brief  and  convincing  state- 
ment of  the  Allies*  case  it  would  be  hard  to 
better  the  short  series  of  **whys"  in  Chapter 
IV.  The  author  writes  throughout  in  the 
confident  and  masterful  manner  of  one  who 
has  taken  the  measure  of  his  opponents.  He 
strikes  hard  and  he  strikes  home.  His  book, 
as  we  have  seen,  is  prohibited  in  Germany, 
and  his  friends  there  are  of  necessity  dumb, 
but  what  he  says  aloud  many  must  silently 

20  — 


/ 


INTRODUCTION 

think,  and  even  in  Germany  thought  cannot 
be  wholly  under  police  supervision.  "When 
the  War  is  ended  a  new  war  will  begin,  waged, 
perhaps,  with  other  weapons,  perhaps  partly 
with  the  same :  it  will  be  a  war  for  the  making 
of  a  new  Germany.  The  issue  deserves  to  be 
closely  watched  by  all  civilised  nations,  for 
on  that  issue  turns  the  question  whether  the 
immense  forces  embodied  in  the  German  na- 
tion are  to  be  won  for  reason  and  humanity, 
or  to  remain  as  agents  of  destruction  and 
demoralisation  in  the  hands  that  are  wield- 
ing them  to-day  against  all  that  civilisation 
holds  most  sacred  and  most  dear. 

T.  W.  ROLLESTON. 


21 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A 
GERMAN 


The  publication  of  the  work  *'J*Accnse*' 
created  an  enormous  sensation.  The  fact 
that  in  this  book  an  authentic  German  should 
have  unhesitatingly  laid  the  blame  for  the 
outbreak  of  the  World- War  at  the  door  of  the 
Government  of  his  Fatherland,  the  mysteri- 
ous anonymity  of  the  writer,  the  bold  yet 
logical  exposition  of  his  unsparing  indict- 
ment, combined  to  establish  his  book  forth- 
with in  the  forefront  of  War  literature. 
Wherever  men  were  thinking  and  discussing, 
this  book,  in  spite  of  the  tremendous  military 
events  then  in  progress,  became  the  topic  of 
the  hour.  To  this  ' '  wherever '  *  we  must,  how- 
ever, make  an  exception  of  Germany  and 
23 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

Austria-Hungary,  in  which  countries  the 
work  was  prohibited  immediately  on  its 
appearance. 

That  the  Government  of  my  country  should 
have  thought  fit  simply  to  prohibit  *'J*Ac- 
cuse"  is  distressing  to  me,  not  because  I 
regret  that  by  this  act  the  German  public 
should  have  been  deprived  of  the  enjoyment 
of  a  valuable  piece  of  literature,  but,  in  the 
first  place,  because  this  prohibition  seems  to 
me  to  imply  an  offence  against  those  sacred 
treasures  of  Culture  for  the  protection  of 
which  Germany  had  drawn  the  sword,  and, 
in  the  second  place,  because  a  Government,  by 
forbidding  a  book,  unfortunately  creates  to 
some  extent  the  impression  that  it  has  been 
actuated  by  fear. 

If  a  person  possesses  incontestable  proofs 
of  the  justice  and  sacredness  of  his  cause 
(and  we  may  presume  that  this  was  the  case 
with  the  German  Government),  can  there  be 
any  books  which  he  is  under  the  necessity  of 
prohibiting?    Are  the  German  people,  when 

24 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

fthey  are  discussing  the  origins  of  and  re- 
sponsibilities for  the  World-War,  to  be  al- 
lowed only  to  make  use  of  a  definite  set  of 
ideas  manufactured  for  them  in  the  Berlin 
workshop  of  Culture?  Did  not  the  German 
Chancellor,  in  one  of  his  speeches,  point  out 
with  pride  that  it  was  only  the  French  who 
were  subject  to  a  petty,  truth-fearing  censor- 
ship, whereas  the  activity  of  the  German 
Censor  was  limited  to  the  purely  military 
questions  connected  with  the  defence  of  the 
Fatherland  ?  And  is  not  this  as  it  should  be  ? 
Is  the  German  military  censorship,  as  the 
case  of  the  book  '*  J'Accuse"  would  appear  to 
indicate,  to  step  outside  its  role,  and  consti- 
tute itself  a  general  inquisition  over  all  the 
offspring  of  men^s  minds,  thus  exercising  a 
tutelage  over  the  whole  German  nation? 

That  would  be  regrettable  from  every  point 
of  view.  Every  true  German  patriot  loves  his 
country,  not  only  because  it  is  the  most  val- 
iant in  war  of  all  the  countries  in  the  world, 
but  also  because  it  is  the  native  land  of  crit- 
25 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

ical  methods,  of  scientific  logic,  and  of  spirit- 
ual freedom.  If,  in  the  land  of  Kant  and 
Fichte,  a  Government  now  declares  that  it 
must  draw  the  sword  in  defence  of  these 
treasures  of  Culture,  and  yet  at  the  same 
time  enforces  silence  upon  any  critics  who 
are  not  of  one  mind  with  itself,  this  proceed- 
ing ought  to  cause  us  Germans  the  utmost 
shame  and  anxiety:  shame,  because  it  is  a 
flagrant  contradiction  between  word  and 
deed,  which  little  becomes  the  Fatherland  of 
spiritual  freedom;  anxiety,  because  the  Gov- 
ernment of  our  country,  which  now  for  seven- 
teen months  has  waged  successful  war  against 
the  armies  and  fleets  of  all  Europe,  thereby 
creates  the  impression  that  it  is  nervous  of  a 
book.  Yet  what  would  any  victory  of  arms 
avail  us,  if  we  were  forced  in  the  end  to  lay 
down  those  arms  before  the  spirit  that  speaks 

through  books? 

•  •  •  •  • 

The  few  copies  of  the  book  which  have 
found  their  way  into  Germany,  in  spite  of  the 

26 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

prohibition,  have  called  forth  loud  cries  of 
''Shame!"  and  flaming  protests.  True, 
*' J'Accuse"  has  won  approval  in  many  fam- 
ilies and  private  conclaves  in  Germany,  even 
in  the  most  exalted  spheres ;  but  this  approval 
must  not  be  voiced  in  public.  The  only  feel- 
ings and  opinions  which  may  be  voiced  in 
public  in  Germany  at  present  are  those  which 
echo  the  feelings  and  opinions  of  the  Govern- 
ment. Of  all  that  is  being  thought  in  Ger- 
many to-day  the  greater  part  will  never  be 
known,  because  it  will  never  be  permissible 
to  print  it.  The  so-called  peace-within-the- 
precincts  (Burgfriede)  is  an  institution  under 
which  only  staunch  patriots  can  utter  their 
thoughts  with  the  tranquil  assurance  that 
they  will  meet  with  no  contradiction.  Indi- 
vidual opinions  no  longer  exist,  but  only 
opinions  that  have  found  official  sanction. 
Journalists  and  newspapers  standing  to  at- 
tention !  Field-grey  sentiments  and  field-grey 
science!  Iron  words  and  iron  money!  The 
whole  nation  one  mass  of  bronze,  in  which 

27 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

no  golden  streak  of  individual  character  is 
allowed  to  glimmer!  A  scoundrel  he  who 
should  now  speak  as  a  citizen  of  the  world! 
An  abandoned  wretch  he  who  now  should 
hint  a  doubt  of  the  supreme  virtue  and  verac- 
ity of  the  Government  once  so  bitterly  ma- 
ligned !  An  offspring  of  Hell  he  who  should  1  / 
not  look  to  Potsdam  as  the  source  of  Truth !  j  • 
In  virtue  of  this  same  peace-within-the-pre- 
cincts,  that  which  was  once  our  greatest  pride 
— for  instance,  the  freedom  of  speech  and 
criticism  constitutionally  guaranteed  to 
every  German — ^may  now  become  a  fearful 
crime,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  that  which 
in  normal  times  was  looked  upon  as  a  sign 
of  an  inferior  mind — for  instance,  contempt 
for  foreign  nations,  what  Bismarck  de- 
nounced as  the  grovelling  of  the  **  reptiles,  *  * 
and  the  like — is  now  esteemed  an  evidence  of 
the  highest  virtue. 

These  facts  enable  us  to  understand  why 
**  J'Accuse'*  is  for  the  time  being  a  still-born 
infant  as  far  as  Germany  is  concerned,  and 

28 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

why  sentence  of  banishment  and  outlawry 
was  forthwith  declared  upon  the  author,  who, 
a  German  subject,  had  displayed  the  unheard- 
of  audacity  to  present  the  situation  in  a 
different  light  from  that  in  which  it  was  pre- 
sented by  the  Government  of  his  country. 
So  it  happened  that,  one  day,  when  in  spite 
of  every  effort  the  book  could  no  longer  be 
hushed  up,  the  German  reader  was  deluged 
with  a  flood  of  articles  and  pamphlets,  all 
with  one  voice  pouring  violent  abuse  upon  a 
work  which  it  was  impossible  for  him  to 
procure  at  any  bookshop.  The  distinguished 
authors  of  these  attacks  (who,  of  course, 
knew  what  they  were  talking  about)  assured 
him  thaf  J 'Accuse"  was  a  shameful  produc- 
tion, a  scurrilous  pamphlet,  a  murderous 
attack  on  their  nation,  and  so  on,  and  so  on. 
To  be  sure,  the  honest  fellow  never  doubted 
for  a  moment  that  it  was  only  in  France 
that  the  Censor  was  afraid  of  the  tnith,  and 
that  he  himself,  now  as  ever,  was  living  in  a 
land  of  freedom,  and  that  it  was  the  necessity 

29 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

of  defending  this  freedom  which  had  brought 
about  the  War;  yet,  this  being  so,  he  was 
forced  to  take  note  that  we  Germans  (unless 
we  happen  to  be  living  abroad)  do  not  enjoy 
the  freedom  to  reflect  upon  and  discuss  other 
explanations  of  the  War  than  those  dictated 
from  Berlin. 

Because  I  do  not  believe  that  love  of  one's 
country  and  subjection  of  one's  reasoning 
faculties  are  the  same  thing;  because  I  am 
not  prepared  that  our  Government  should 
restrict  our  right  to  a  free  investigation  of 
the  truth  and  perhaps  even  finally  command 
us  to  raise  our  hands  in  horror  at  the  de- 
pravity of  a  German  whose  only  crime  is  that 
he  is  of  a  different  opinion  from  his  (cer- 
tainly not  infallible)  Government;  because, 
moreover,  I  believe  that  it  cannot  be  the  pur- 
pose of  this  War  to  present  us  with  a  field- 
grey  Germany,  where  frenzied  abuse  and 
calumniation  of  anyone  who  expresses  a  dis- 
sentient opinion  shall  be  a  political  weapon, 
where  a  grovelling  servility  shall  be  deemed 
•    30 


-) 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

the  highest  civic  virtue,  and  intellectual  bond- 
age a  substitute  for  democratic  sentiment 
for  all  these  reasons,  I  deem  it  necessary  to 
speak  a  word  of  reassurance  and  explanation. 
While  I  give  you  my  solemn  assurance, 
Herr  Censor,  that  I  am  a  sincere  patriot,  that 
I  was  bom  and  educated  in  Prussia,  and  that 
I  have  been  generally  reputed  a  good  Chris- 
tian and  a  law-abiding  German  citizen  by  the 
authorities  of  my  country,  I  would  beg  your 
kind  permission  to  examine  the  book 
**J'Accuse"  with  an  open  mind,  to  discuss 
the  answers  to  it  which  have  been  published, 
and  to  venture  to  express  my  own  views 
concerning  it.  And  all  this,  not  for  the  sake 
of  making  myself  a  party  to  the  dispute 
(Heaven  preserve  you  and  me  from  the 
Teutomaniac  wrath  of  German  scientists  and 
scholars,  as  from  all  other  aflflictions!),  but 
only  for  the  sake  of  clearing  up,  in  the  name 
of  the  supreme  treasures  of  Culture  (for 
which  Germany  is  fighting),  the  questions 
actually  set  forth  in  **  J'Accuse,**  and  of  ap- 
31 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

pealing  for  a  genuine  discussion  of  them,  all 
the  more  earnestly  because  it  is  of  the  great- 
est concern  to  me,  as  a  German,  that  the 
views  expounded  in  a  book  which  has  been 
circulated  throughout  the  world  should  be 
logically  and  judicially  refuted. 


32 


n 

What  is  the  substance  and  what  is  the  in- 
tention of  the  book,  ''J'Accuse"? 

It  is  an  indictment  against  the  German 
Government,  and  it  sets  out  to  prove  that 
*  *  Germany,  in  conjunction  with  Austria-Hun- 
gary, is  guilty  of  having  provoked  the 
European  War. '  * 

In  the  first  chapter,  ** Germany,  Awake!'' 
the  author  tells  us  that  the  German  nation 
has  been  the  dupe  of  a  gigantic  lie,  and  he 
undertakes  to  prove  that  this  is  so. 

In  the  second  chapter  he  gives  us  a  **  His- 
tory of  the  Events  Leading  Up  to  the  Crime.'* 
He  quotes  and  analyses  passages  from  the 
works  of  General  Bemhardi,  which  go  to 
show  that  the  typical  German  representative 
of  the  Imperialistic  view  of  war  ardently  de- 
sired the  War,  because  he  hoped  that  it  would 

33 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

achieve  great  results  towards  the  establish- 
ment of  Germany  as  a  World-Power. 
*' J'Accuse"  believes  that  the  Pan-Slav  move- 
ment, which  has  often  been  named  as  the 
cause  of  the  War,  was  scarcely  as  eager  for 
War  as  the  Pan-German  movement.  These 
"Pan''  movements  are  to  be  found  in  every 
country;  they  are  harmless  so  long  as  they 
do  not  proceed  to  actions ;  but  our  Pan-Ger- 
manists  did  proceed  to  the  decisive  action. 
The  influential  leader  and  battering-ram  of 
the  Pan-Germanist  movement  is,  in  the  opin- 
ion of  the  author,  the  German  Crown  Prince ; 
he  does  not  name  him  directly  in  this  con- 
nection, but  he  describes  him  in  such  a  way 
as  to  leave  no  room  for  doubt.  The  present 
War  is,  in  his  opinion,  a  ''war  of  conquest 
sprung  from  Imperialistic  ideas  and  senang 
Imperialistic  ends.*'  Germany  wants  the 
famous  "place  in  the  sun."  "The  place  in 
the  sun  is  the  world-power  which  belongs  to 
us  as  the  chosen  people  of  God."  What  is 
the  meaning  of  "place  in  the  sun"?     The 

34 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

author  of  ''J'Accuse'*  maintains  that  Ger- 
many already  possessed  it  before  the  War. 
In  proof  of  this  he  quotes  statistics  (many 
of  them  again  derived  from  the  works  of 
General  Bemhardi)  which  demonstrate  con- 
vincingly the  magnificent  development  of 
Germany  in  every  direction.  Does  Germany 
require  more  land,  more  colonies?  The 
writer  tells  us  that  Germany's  true  colonies 
are  in  Paris,  London,  Manchester,  New  York, 
Canada,  South  America,  and  Australia — in 
those  regions  **  where  we  do  not  own  a  foot  of 
land."  That  the  annual  increase  of  popula- 
tion, amounting  to  about  800,000,  does  not 
call  for  any  expansion  of  territory  he  de- 
duces from  the  fact  that  the  number  of  Ger- 
man emigrants  has  declined  from  134,200  per 
annum  in  the  years  1881-1899  to  18,500  in  the 
year  1912,  so  that,  at  the  present  day,  the 
annual  immigration  into  Germany  is  in  excess 
of  the  emigration  from  Germany,  whilst 
trade,  manufactures,  shipping,  and  national 
wealth  continue  to  increase.     Also,  Germany 

35 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

and  the  Triple  Alliance  had  frequently  won 
very  considerable  advantages  by  diplomatic 
methods.  If,  notwithstanding,  the  catchword 
* 'place  in  the  sun"  or  the  theory  of  the  isola- 
tion of  Germany,  and  so  forth,  were  able  to 
make  such  an  impression  on  the  German 
people  that  finally  they  were  echoed  by  one 
and  all,  without  any  very  clear  idea  of  what 
was  implied,  it  was  because  the  Pan-Ger- 
manists  had  systematically  set  to  work  to 
secure  popularity  in  advance  for  the  impend- 
ing War.  "J' Accuse"  devotes  twenty-two 
pages  to  a  survey  of  the  efforts  and  proposals 
made  by  England  during  the  last  few  years 
with  a  view  to  arriving  at  a  political  under- 
standing and  a  naval  agreement  with  Ger- 
many. All  in  vain!  Germany  persistently 
■refused.  She  did  not  want  equal  rights,  but 
f  supremacy.  **If  Germany  really  wanted 
nothing  more  than  was  repeatedly  declared  in 
all  the  speeches  of  the  Kaiser,  the  Crown 
Prince,  and  the  Chancellor,  namely,  security 
from  attack,  free  play  for  her  energies,  un- 

36 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

hampered  development  of  her  Culture,  how 
could  she  have  better  secured  for  herself 
these  blessings  than  by  accepting  the  pro- 
posals made  by  England?"  Germany,  then, 
is  not  fighting  for  her  freedom,  as  her  leaders 
maintain,  since  the  freedom  for  which  she 
professes  to  be  fighting  was  already  hers  long 
before  the  struggle  began.  '' J'Accuse"  now 
discusses  the  following  questions :  Did  Prance 
want  to  attack  us  ?  Did  Russia  want  to  attack 
us  ?  And,  with  the  best  intention,  he  can  find 
no  proofs  of  any  design  for  attacking  Ger- 
many on  the  part  of  these  countries.  He  de- 
scribes the  Triple  Entente  as  a  defensive  alli- 
ance ^ ;  he  discusses  the  underground  work- 

*  Throughout  this  study  of  the  events  leading  up  to  the 
war,  the  author  of  "J 'Accuse" — apart  from  the  Crown 
Prince  and  General  von  Bernhardi,  who  must  be  accepted 
as  speaking  with  authority — bases  his  conclusions  exclu- 
sively upon  documents  which  are  beyond  criticism.  More- 
over, the  voluminous  protocols  of  the  Hague  Conferences 
and  the  mass  of  literature  connected  with  them  confirm  the 
justice  of  his  assertion  that  it  was  Germany  and  Austria 
who,  by  their  opposition,  frustrated  all  the  efforts  of  th« 
Triple  Entente  to  bring  about  a  European  court  of  arbi- 
tration and  a  limitation  of  armaments.  One  of  the  most 
prominent  leaders  of  German  pacifism,  Dr.  A.  H.  Fried,  as- 

37 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

ings  of  the  German  military  party,  with  their 
picked  troops — the  Junkers ;  he  refers  to  the 

sures  us  (Blatter  fiir  Zwischenstaatliehe  Organisation,  No- 
vember-December, 1915)  that  there  was,  in.  fact,  a  close 
connection  between  the  conduct  of  Germany  at  the  Hague 
Conferences  and  the  formation  and  strengthening  of  the 
Triple  Entente.    Dr.  Fried  writes: — 

"There  was  no  thought  of  an  attack  on  Germany,  but 
only  of  the  necessity  for  defence  against  Germany.  .  .  . 
Germany's  complaints  against  Delcasse  and  Lansdowne  are 
unjustified.  She  has  herself  brought  about  the  situation 
from  which  she  is  suffering.  At  The  Hague  in  1899  she 
placed  in  the  hands  of  her  enemies  the  moral  weapon  of 
mistrust.  By  so  doing  she  neglected  to  seize  a  great  oppor- 
tunity and  to  win  for  herself  the  reputation  of  a  Power 
desirous  of  securing  peace  by  modern  methods,  Germany 
showed  an  untimely  persistence  in  her  old  paths.  How 
greatly  the  attitude  of  Germany  in  the  year  1899  was  at 
fault  may  be  gathered  from  the  recently  published  reminis- 
cences of  Andrew  D.  White.  It  is  clear  from  White's 
'Reminiscences'  that  Count  Miinster  (who  obtained  the  title 
of  Prince  for  his  services  at  the  Hague  Conference)  aroused, 
by  his  attitude  as  German  delegate  at  The  Hague,  a  feeling 
of  exasperation  and  mistrust  towards  Germany  in  all  the 
other  States.  Germany  is  BtUl  suffering  from  this  mistrust, 
and  Delcass^  would  not  have  been  possible  without  Miinster. ' ' 

[Andrew  Dickson  White,  a  distingmshed  American  author, 
bom  1832,  was  U.  S.  Ambassador  to  Germany,  1895-1902, 
and  a  member  of  the  Hague  Commission,  1899.  Graf  (after- 
wards Fiirst)  Miinster  was  of  Hanoverian  family.  He  was 
bom  in  London,  1820.  He  has  held  the  oflSces  of  German 
Ambassador  in  London  (1873)  and  Paris  (1885),  as  well 
as  that  of  German  delegate  at  The  Hague. — Ed.] 

38 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

revolution  which  (according  to  the  statements 
of  the  French  Yellow  Book)  has  taken  place  in 
the  views  of  the  Emperor  William  II.  during 
the  last  few  years ;  and  he  comes  to  the  con- 
clusion that  the  truth  is  to  be  sought  else- 
where than  in  the  official  German  statements 
of  the  causes  and  aims  of  the  War.  The 
true  purpose  of  the  War  is,  in  the  opinion  of 
the  author,  the  conquest  of  freedom — **that 
which  is  mine  by  right" — ^namely,  abroad,  the 
politico-commercial  supremacy  in  Europe 
aimed  at  by  the  German  World-Power  poli- 
ticians, and,  at  home,  the  political  enslave- 
ment of  the  German  people;  that  is  to  say, 
such  a  crushing  of  its  democratic  ambitionsX 
as  the  Prussian  Junkers  achieved  by  the  f 
Prussian  victories  of  1815,  1848,  and  1870-1. 
In  the  third  chapter  the  author  of 
**J'Accuse"  discusses  the  "crime"  itself; 
that  is  to  say,  the  diplomatic  mechanism 
which  unchained  the  war.  Any  person  who 
sets  out  to  examine  the  question  of  the  re- 
sponsibility for  this  War  should  read  this 

39 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

chapter  twice  over.  For  it  is,  in  the  first 
place,  the  most  important  part  of  the  book — 
the  actual  accusation  and  argument — and,  in 
the  second  place,  it  is  a  very  well-reasoned 
and  original  survey  of  the  events  of  those 
critical  eleven  days,  taking  into  consideration 
all  the  circumstances  and  all  the  possibili- 
ties, so  far  as  the  available  oflficial  documents 
of  the  countries  involved  make  this  possible. 
The  limits  of  this  book  do  not  permit  of  an 
analysis  of  his  survey ;  but  in  any  case  these 
178  pages  must  be  uncomfortable  reading  for 
any  German  citizen  who  makes  no  distinction 
between  love  of  his  country  and  trust  in  the 
German  Government.  Not  so  much  because 
the  statements  of  '*  J'Accuse*'  are  in  flat  con- 
tradiction to  the  official  German  statements  of 
the  origin  of  the  War,  but,  most  of  all,  be- 
cause it  is  difficult  to  ignore  the  judicial 
acumen  with  which  *' J'Accuse"  goes  to  work 
and  the  wealth  of  material  which  he  brings 
forward.  I  found  it  easy  to  compose  a  refuta- 
tion of  the  first  113  pages  of  the  book,  for, 

40 


/ 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

after  all,  it  is  easy  to  present  **  antecedent 
events"  in  a  light  favourable  to  any  country 
and  any  party.  With  the  exercise  of  a  little 
skill,  it  is  a  matter  of  no  great  difficulty  to 
assemble  everything  which  serves  one's  pur- 
pose and  to  draw  a  veil  over  the  rest.  But 
here,  where  we  are  confronted  with  the  mo- 
mentous question :  Who  was  it  who  proceeded  I 
from  idle  threats  to  actual  deeds  1  here,  where 
we  have  to  deal  with  nothing  else  than  offi- 
cial documents,  which  are  accessible,  verifia- 
ble, and  convincing  for  all  and  sundry ;  here, 
where  the  writer,  setting  aside  all  patriotic 
prejudices  and  sentiments,  comes  forward 
only  as  a  logician  and  a  jurist,  we  must  either 
produce  a  judicial  refutation  in  the  shape  of 
valid  documentary  counter-evidence,  or  we 
must  admit  that  he  is  right.  The  methods 
employed  by  the  author  in  this  chapter,  so 
far  as  I  can  judge,  are  such  as  to  afford  no 
possibility  of  deliberate  deception  and  mis- 
representation. If  the  first  two  chapters  con- 
vey the  impression  that  the  writer  is  more  a 

41 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

partisan  than  a  jurist,  in  reading  the  third 
chapter  we  feel  that  he  is  not  accusing  the 
German  Government  because  he  wants  to 
accuse  it,  hut  because  he  is  confronted  with 
documents  which  compel  him  to  this  course. 
Later  on  we  shall  have  occasion  to  repeat  a 
few  of  the  questions  which  are  propounded, 
examined,  and  answered  in  *' J'Accuse."  It 
appears  to  me  that  anyone  who  undertakes  to 
reply  to  the  book  ought  first  of  all  to  reply  to 
these  questions.  Yes,  I  would  go  so  far  as  to 
say  that  anyone  who  is  of  opinion  that  the 
question  of  the  responsibility  for  this  War 
ought  to  be  made  the  subject  of  a  thorough 
and  systematic  examination  (since  only  by 
this  means  can  we  prevent  the  occurrence  of 
similar  catastrophes  in  the  future)  ought  to 
take  the  same  course  as  that  taken  by  the 
author  of  *'J'Accuse";  because,  unless  these 
questions  are  answered  with  reference  to  the 
diplomatic  documents  belonging  to  the  crit- 
ical eleven  days,  any  examination  of  this  ques- 
tion   of    guilt    will    soon    degenerate    into 

42 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

/  frenzied  panegyrics  of  the  respective  Father- 
'  lands  of  those  engaged  in  the  investigation. 
The  fourth  and  fifth  chapters  of  the  book 
(''The  Consequences  of  the  Act,"  ''The  Fu- 
ture") need  not  detain  us  here.  In  these  the 
writer  reveals  himself  as  a  resolute  pacifist, 
inveighs  against  the  system  of  armed  peace, 
appeals  for  a  peaceful  alliance  of  free  na- 
tions, and  intimates  that  a  free, Germany 
must  of  necessity  be  a  republican  Germany. 
Just  as  the  first  and  second  chapters  are 
only  introductions  to  the  third  chapter  of 
the  book,  in  the  same  way  the  last  eighty 

pages  are  only  conclusions  to  it. 

*  *  *  *  * 

Like  all  books  which  are  concerned  with 
topical  issues,  "J 'Accuse"  has  its  faults.  In- 
deed, these  faults  are  so  numerous  (and  in 
the  state  of  "peace-within-the-precincts" 
,  lend  themselves  to  such  convenient  exploita- 
tion) that  by  enumerating  them  we  might 
easily  mislead  the  reader  in  regard  to  the 
real  contents  and  value  of  the  book.  From 
43 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

the  very  first  lines  we  feel  that  the  writer 
belongs  to  those  republicans  of  the  old  school 
who  in  their  secret  souls  join  with  Kant  in 
placing  the  blame  for  wars  on  absolute  king- 
ship. Consequently,  he  is  not  always  speak- 
ing in  the  character  of  a  stem  logician,  but 
frequently  in  the  character  of  an  apostle  of 
that  republican  ideal  so  sternly  prohibited  in 
Germany.  A  strong  personal  antagonism  to 
Junkerdom  and  militarism  is  apparent  on 
every  page,  as  well  as  that  love  for  the  Fath- 

/erland  which  throughout  German  history  has 
always  been  held  deserving  of  punishment — 
imprisonment  in  the  case  of  Jahn,  the  father 
of  German  athletics  ^ ;  disgrace  and  calumny 
in  the  case  of  Ernst  Moritz  Amdt,  the  most 


•Ludwig  Jahn  (1778-1852)  was  one  of  the  most  notable 
of  German  patriots  during  the  Napoleonic  period.  He 
founded  in  1811  the  Turnvereine,  or  athletic  societies,  which 
have  been  a  feature  in  German  life  ever  since.  During  the 
period  of  political  reaction  after  1815  every  popular  and 
voluntary  organisation  came  under  the  ban  of  the  Govern- 
ment, and  Jahn  was  arrested  in  1819  and  not  released  for 
six  years. — Ed. 

44 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

national  of  our  German  poets.^  This  love  for 
the  Fatherland,  with  its  assumption  that  the 
arch-enemy  of  the  German  people  is  not  out- 
side, but  inside  its  frontiers,  occasionally 
obscures  the  clear  vision  of  the  writer,  and 
gives  rise  to  a  somewhat  one-sided  presenta- 
tion of  the  facts,  such  as  is  particularly  and 
disagreeably  noticeable  in  the  second  chapter 
of  the  book.  After  all,  we  are  not  concerned 
to  present  England,  France,  and  Russia  as 
innocent  lambs,  and  Germany  and  Austria  as 
greedy  beasts  of  prey,  y  In  examining  the 
/^origins  of  the  war,  the  author  ought  to  have 
I  borne  in  mind  that  there  existed  also  in 
France,  Russia,  and  England  numerous  indi- 

•  Ernst  Moritz  Arndt  (1769-1860)  was  author  of  some 
of  the  most  inspiring  of  the  songs  of  freedom  which  were 
written  during  the  struggle  with  Napoleon.    His  lines: — 

Der  Gott  der  Eisen  wachsen  liess, 
Der  woUte  keine  Knechte, 

are  printed  to-day  at  the  head  of  German  war-postcards. 
He  was  arrested  in  1820,  deprived  of  his  Professorship  of 
History  at  Bonn,  and  forbidden  to  write  or  lecture.  The 
scandal  in  his  ease  was  very  conspicuous,  for  his  country 
had  no  more  loyal  subject.— ^Ed. 

45 


II 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

viduals,  associations,  newspapers,  and  books 
whose  aim  was  to  egg  on  their  country  to 
war.  Moltke,  Treitschke,  Frobenius,  and 
Bemhardi  were,  in  fact,  not  the  only  individ- 
uals in  Europe  who  extolled  war  as  a  heaven- 
sent blessing  and  a  baptism  of  healing  for  the 
nations.  .-  . . 

In  this  connection,  however,  it  ought  to  be 
emphasised  that  the  advocates  of  war  in  the 
countries  of  the  Triple  Entente,  especially  in 
France,  formed  a  dwindling  minority  without 
influence  either  on  the  Government  or  the  peo- 
ple. This  fact  I  have  myself,  as  the  result  of 
long  study,  expressly  emphasised  in  my  book, 
**The  French  Democracy"  (**Die  Franzo- 
sische  Demokratie").  In  a  long  passage  on 
* '  The  Peace-Guarantees  of  the  Third  Repub- 
lic" (''Die  Friedensgarantien  der  dritten  Re- 
publik")  I  have  drawn  attention  to  those  pe- 
culiar features  of  the  French  democracy  (in- 
fluential State  finance  with  pre-eminently  in- 
ternational interests,  a  stationary  population, 
an  increasing  worldliness,  a  pacifist  conception 

46 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

of  society  on  the  part  of  the  leading  French 
intellectuals,  the  effect  of  democratic  ideas, 
and  so  forth)  which  have  formed  a  combina- 
tion of  elements  distinctly  opposed  to  war, 
and,  in  the  course  of  decades,  have  brought 
about  a  perceptible  weakening  of  the  idea  of 
revanche.  In  Germany,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  chauvinistic  pro-war  agitation  has  been 
promoted  and  encouraged  among  the  most  in- 
fluential circles  by  the  Junkers,  militarists, 
and  Pan-Germanists.  In  the  Pan-German 
Union  (Alldeutscher  Verband),  in  the  Navy 
League  (Flottenverein),  the  Defence  League 
(Wehrverein),  and  similar  associations,  Ger- 
many already  possessed  gigantic  organisa- 
tions, extending  over  the  whole  Empire,  which 
were  preparing  her,  in  accordance  with  a  defi- 
nite programme,  for  the  *' inevitable"  war  for 
world-supremacy. 

To  return  to  "J 'Accuse."  The  observa- 
tions of  the  writer  with  regard  to  the  military 
situation  existing  at  the  time  that  he  was 
writing  seem  to  me  beside  the  question.    Al- 

47 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

though  his  conclusion  that  the  present  War 
can  under  no  circumstances  end  in  Germany's 
victory  is  confirmed  more  and  more  every 
day  by  the  course  of  military  events,  his 
prophecies  have  furnished  a  welcome  pretext 
to  the  all-too-numerous  intellectual  busybodies 
who  alone  have  the  right  of  free  speech,  for 
calling  into  question  the  writer's  love  for  his 
country,  and  for  persuading  the  uninitiated 
reader  that  he  has  written  in  the  interests  of 
the  enemies  of  Germany. 

This  last  suspicion,  however,  is  proof  of  a 
lack  of  psychological  acumen.  An  author  who 
was  in  the  pay  of  the  enemies  of  Germany 
would  have  written  with  much  less  heat,  that 
is  to  say,  with  less  imprudence,  and  would 
have  produced  a  book  which,  like  all  books 
written  to  order,  would  have  been  much  more 
calm,  more  precise,  and  more  tedious.  It  is, 
in  fact,  the  passionate  enthusiasm  for  his  po- 
litical ideal  displayed  by  the  author  which 
proves  that  the  book  was  written  in  response 

48 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

to  an  inward  compulsion,  and  that  it  was,  in 
fact,  a  spontaneous  expression  of  the  au- 
thor's love  for  his  country.  "J 'Accuse"  is 
written  with  so  much  heat ;  it  is  so  devoid  of 
literary  artifice  and  studied  effect;  the  char- 
acter and  soul  of  the  writer  are  presented  to 
the  reader  with  so  much  reality  and  emotion 
and  guilelessness — in  fact,  the  book  is  so  de- 
fective and  one-sided  from  the  standpoint  of 
German  scientific  cautiousness  that,  in  spite 
of  the  judicial  questions  with  which  it  is  con- 
cerned, from  the  first  to  the  last  line,  it  con- 
veys the  impression  of  an  outpouring  of  the 
heart.  A  writer  who  is  not  writing  spontane- 
ously in  the  cause  of  an  ideal  will  never  make 
this  impression,  will  never  be  able  to  carry 
away  the  reader  with  him.  And,  quite  apart 
from  this,  nobody  will  pay  a  price  for  an 
anonymous  writer.  The  first  condition  ordi- 
narily imposed  on  a  writer  whose  pen  it  is 
desired  to  buy  is  that  he  shall  contribute  his 
name  (and  it  must  be  a  well-known  name) 
49 


SECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

to  the  support  of  the  ideas  which  are  to  be 
dictated  to  him.  * 

In  any  case,  "J 'Accuse,"  like  all  valuable 
and  enduring  books,  is  not  an  ** objective" 
book  in  the  German  sense  of  the  word.  And 
therefore  anyone  who  studiously  ignores  the 
kernel  of  the  book  (the  third  chapter)  and 
only  reflects  with  a  shake  of  the  head  on  the 
zeal  which  the  writer  has  brought  to  the  work 
of  assembling  all  the  circumstances  most  dam- 
aging to  the  German  Government,  may  easily 
get  the  impression  that  **  J'Accuse"  is  not  a 
serious  work,  but  a  libelous  production,  that 
it  is  not  inspired  by  any  earnest  motive,  but 
that  it  is  an  accusation  framed  in  a  spirit  of 
partisanship  against  the  Governments  of  the 
Central  Powers. 

*If,  on  the  one  hand,  the  anonymity  of  the  writer  seems 
to  me  a  proof  that  he  wrote  his  book  with  complete  inde- 
pendence and  with  a  sorrowful  heart,  on  the  other  hand  I 
cannot  on  principle  approve  that  he  should  not  have  put  his 
name  to  it.  Yet,  in  view  of  the  present  stifling  of  every  free 
expression  of  opinion,  I  can  excuse  the  anonymity,  for  it 
offers  the  only  possible  way  of  supporting  ideas  and  aspira- 
tions which  are  prohibited  and  punishable  by  law. 

50 


\ 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

The  more  steeped  a  man  is  in  the  ideas 
which  are  the  rule  in  Germany  at  the  present 
time,  the  more  strongly,  of  course,  will  he  get 
this  impression.    For  we  repeat  once  again : 
the  patriotism  revealed  by  the  writer  of  this    \ 
book  is  regarded  in  Germany  to-day,  as  it  was       \ 
regarded  a  hundred  years  ago,  as  nothing  less    ' 
than  high  treason. 

For  those  of  us,  however,  who,  in  the  inter- 
ests of  truth,  feel  ourselves  unable  to  defer  to 
the  views  of  Berlin  on  the  subject  of  high 
treason,  there  is  no  reason  for  judging 
'' J'Accuse"  in  a  different  fashion  from  other 
books.  In  the  foregoing  pages  I  have  at- 
tempted to  indicate  the  structure,  the  main 
ideas,  the  defects,  and  the  prejudices  of  the 
book.  And  because,  as  an  impartial  German, 
I  am  of  opinion  that  the  book  contains,  in 
spite  of  its  defects,  the  most  important  ele- 
ments towards  the  discussion  of  the  question 
of  responsibility  for  the  War ;  because,  more- 
over, I  believe  that  we  Germans,  in  the  inter- 
ests of  our  country  and  of  the  coming  peace, 

51 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

ought  neither  to  shun  this  discussion  nor  to 
dilute  the  question  of  responsibility — for 
these  and  for  other  reasons  it  seems  to  me 
absurd  to  whisk  the  book  under  the  table  with 
facile  and  insulting  words  of  abuse,  as  it  has 
been  sought  to  do  in  Germany  up  till  now. 
To  try  to  abuse  out  of  existence  a  book  which 
has  justly  created  a  sensation  all  over  the 
world  and  has  already  been  translated  into 
most  of  the  languages  of  civilisation  is  a 
childish  and  a  wholly  un-German  proceeding. 
Unless  we  are  to  corroborate  indirectly  the 
statemeilts  of  the  writer,  we  must  refute  them 
in  a  fair  and  business-like  manner. 

Let  us  now  proceed  to  examine  the  most 
important  answers  to  *  *  J  'Accuse '  *  which  have 
been  published  up  to  the  present. 


52 


m 

Apakt  from  numberless  newspaper  articles, 
there  are,  in  particular,  three  replies  to 
"J 'Accuse"  which  have  been  published  and 
assiduously  propagated  in  Germany: — 

*'A  Slanderer,"^  by  Professor  Th.  Schie- 
mann;  ^^  J 'Accuse  from  the  Notes  of  a  Field- 
grey  Academician"  2 J  and  ** Reflections  of  a 
Swiss  Neutral  on  the  book  J' Accuse."  ^ 

Like  all  those  who  during  the  last  few 
decades  have  openly  and  defiantly  supported 
the  right  and  destiny  of  Germany  to  a  world- 
supremacy  and  thereby  excited  amazement 
and  anxiety  in  foreign  countries,  Professor 

^ ' '  Ein  Verleumder, ' '  Georg  Eeimer,  Berlin. 

'^^ J' Accuse  aus  dem  Aufzeichnungen  eines  Feldgrauen 
Akademikers, "  Stilke,  Berlin. 

"'Gedanken  eines  Schweizerischen  Neutralen  iiber  das 
Buch:  J 'Accuse,'*  A.  Liithy,  Solothum. 

53 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

Schiemann,*  the  author  of  the  first  pamphlet, 
is  a  notability  of  present-day  intellectual  Ger- 
many. Together  with  Rohrbach,  Reventlow, 
Chamberlain,  Harden,  Keim,  Ostwald,  Som- 
bart,  and  so  forth,  Privy  Councillor  Schie- 
mann  commands  a  division  of  that  Imperial- 
istic army  whose  Commander-in-Chief  is 
named  Bemhardi.  He  is  thus  the  political 
antithesis  of  the  author  of  **  J^Accuse.'* 

On  the  very  first  page  of  his  pamphlet  he 
assures  us  that  the  author  of  *' J'Accuse*'  is 
not  a  German  patriot,  but  a  deliberate  slan- 
derer. Schiemann,  the  Professor  of  History, 
contents  himself  with  giving  a  summary  of 
the  contents  of  the  book  in  nine  lines,  and 
then  asks  excitedly:  "Has  there  ever  been 
heard  a  more  shameless  distortion  of  the 
truth  from  the  mouth  of  a  German,  to  the 
detriment  of  his  country  ?  * '   Perhaps  it  might 

*Dr,  Theodor  Schiemann  (6.  1847),  one  of  the  most  vio- 
lent of  the  disciples  of  Treitschke,  has  long  been  noted  for 
his  anti-English  and  anti-Eussian  views.  He  is  Professor 
of  History  at  Berlin.  His  most  notable  book  on  the  war 
is  "Die  Letzten  Etappen  zum  Weltkrieg:  Deutschland  und 
die  grosee  Politik,  anno  1914," — Ed. 

54 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

first  be  asked  whether  a  German  Professor  of 
History  ever  before  passed  a  more  superficial 
judgment  upon  a  book  which  was  being  dis- 
cussed all  over  the  world. 

Professor  Schiemann  informs  us  that  Ger- 
man Imperialism  involves  no  idea  of  world- 
supremacy,  and  that  it  is  only  "malicious 
misrepresentation'*  that  has  made  it  appear 
to  do  so.  *  *  The  courageous  writings  of  Bem- 
hardi,  with  a  clear  prevision  of  what  was 
preparing,  have  demonstrated  the  necessity 
of  drawing  the  sword." 

Courageous  writings!  Herr  Schiemann *s 
whole  conception  of  the  universe  is  contained 
in  these  two  words.  This  honest,  good-na- 
tured German  Imperialism,  which  a  closer 
inspection  reveals  as  the  most  peaceable 
philosophy  in  the  world !  If  one  were  infected 
with  the  servile  zeal  of  the  German  Profes- 
sors of  History,  one  might  almost  weep  over 
that  ''malicious  misrepresentation"  which 
has  been  propagated  over  a  wicked  world. 

But  still  further  conclusions  are  arrived  at, 
55 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

if  we  attack  the  subject  with  German  pro- 
fessorial earnestness:  for  instance,  the  re- 
markable fact  that  ** preventive"  means,  not 
^' preventives^  at  all,  but  properly  ^^defens- 
ive.ss  **It  is  also  a  historically  untenable 
assumption  that  a  preventive  war  cannot  be 
in  the  nature  of  a  defensive  war,"  very  in- 
genuously remarks  Herr  Schiemann.  What 
would  he  say  if  anyone  were  to  steal  his  purse 
and  at  the  same  time  maintain  that  he  was 
obliged  to  steal  it,  because  otherwise  the  Herr 
Privy  Councillor  would  have  stolen  his,  and 
that  consequently  his  theft  is,  to  be  sure,  a 
theft,  but  only  a  preventive  theft,  and  even,  in 
fact,  a  necessary  measure  of  self-defence 
against  Privy  Councillors  ?  Herr  Schiemann 
would  doubtless  pronounce  the  fellow  to  be 
out  of  his  senses,  since  he  himself  is  an  honest 
man  and  has  never  had  any  intention  of 
stealing  purses.  And  Herr  Schiemann  might 
perhaps  add  that,  by  admitting  such  ''lame 
excuses"  as  these,  we  should  be  smoothing  the 
way  for  crime.   This  is  what  Herr  Schiemann 

56 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

might  conceivably  say  in  reference  to  Ms 
individual  case.  But  if  England,  France,  and 
Russia  say  the  same  to  Germany — ^namely, 
that  they  never  had  any  intention  of  stealing 
— then  he  stoutly  maintains  that  these  are 
only  cunning  lies,  devised  in  order  to  put  Ger- 
many off  her  guard  and  then  to  steal  her 
purse. 

A  grain  of  logic,  please,  Herr  Professor! 
Either  you  must  admit  that  the  absurd  excuse 
of  the  thief  who  steals  your  purse  is  legally 
sound,  in  which  case  Germany  certainly  has 
a  right  to  wage  a  preventive  war  (but  in  that 
case  every  thief  has  the  right  to  steal  a  purse 
upon  the  plea  that  he  has  acted  in  self-de- 
fence) ;  or  else  you  do  not  admit  this  excuse, 
and,  in  that  case,  the  German  preventive  war 
was — as  the  author  of  '' J'Accuse'*  asserts — 
a  crime.  But  if  in  the  one  case  you  say  that 
/the  more  loudly  the  thief  endeavours  to  vin- 
dicate his  action  by  lame  excuses  the  more 
culpable  he  becomes,  while  in  the  other  case 
you  declare  that  Germany  was  justified  in 
57 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

assuming  that  her  enemies  were  planning  to 
attack  her  and  in  forestalling  them  (and 
that,  therefore,  her  preventive  war  was  a 
measure  of  self-defence),  this  is  logic  for 
babes,  and  an  insult  to  an  adult  human 
intelligence. 

In  any  case,  Herr  Schiemann,  in  the  sen- 
tence quoted  above,  admits  that  Germany  is 
waging  a  preventive  war,  thereby  uninten- 
tionally corroborating  the  accusations  of  the 
**  slanderer." 

The  above  will  sufficiently  indicate  the 
character  of  the  Herr  Professor's  pamphlet. 
But  the  anxiety  which  he  displays  to  avoid 
the  central  issue  of  "J 'Accuse,"  and  the  loud 
loquacity  with  which  he  discourses  on  sub- 
jects entirely  alien  to  the  discussion,  are  so 
grossly  evident  in  his  pamphlet  that  I  can- 
not refrain  from  analysing  it  a  little  further. 

The  author  of  **J'Accuse"  has  committed 
the  crime  of  giving  to  his  study  of  the  events 
leading  up  to  the  War  (to  speak  in  the  spirit 
of  the  time)  a  republican  bridge-head.    Pro- 

58 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

fessor  Schiemann,  on  the  other  hand,  erects 
a  Pan-Germanist  bridge-head.  He  tells  us 
about  the  origin  of  the  Hague  Conference, 
and  about  other  things  which  we  are  not 
interested  to  know,  and  finally,  on  page  23, 
he  comes  to  the  point,  and  asserts  somewhat 
pompously  that ' '  anyone  who  invalidates  the 
verdicts  of  not  guilty  pronounced  [in  the 
book  ''J'Accuse"]  upon  England,  Russia, 
and  France,  by  producing  overwhelming 
counter-evidence,  thereby  cancels  at  the  same 
time  the  verdicts  pronounced  by  the  'German' 
against  the  Fatherland,  and  against  Austria- 
Hungary.  It  will  suffice,  therefore,  to  exam- 
ine these  verdicts  of  not  guilty,  which  are 
refused  acceptance  by  the  whole  unanimous 
German  people,  with  the  single  exception  of 
the  so-called  '  German. '  ' '  Now  that  the  Herr 
Professor  has,  in  this  elegant  and  striking 
proposition,  as  it  were,  rolled  up  his  shirt- 
sleeves, the  reader  awaits  the  pompously  ad- 
vertised "overwhelming  evidence."  But 
what  does  Herr  Schiemann  do  ?    He  ransacks 

59 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

every  nook  and  corner  of  the  history  of  the 
last  twenty  years  for  expressions  of  hostility 
to  Germany — books,  newspapers,  &c.,  emanat- 
ing from  the  countries  of  the  Quadruple 
Entente;  he  discusses  in  detail  a  book — 
Flourens'  **La  France  Conquise" — though  he 
admits  that  it  was  entirely  without  influence ; 
he  speaks  of  the  political  influence  of  the 
French  freemasons,  of  the  exertions  of  Rus- 
sia to  form  closer  relations  with  England,  of 
the  Balkan  entanglements  of  recent  years,  of 
the  treacherous  policy  of  Italy,  of  the  policy 
of  encirclement  of  Edward  VII.  (which,  of 
course,  could  not  fail  of  success),  of  every- 
thing from  any  source  far  or  near  which  suits 
his  thesis,  except  the  one  thing  about  which 
he  set  out  to  and  ought  to  speak.  Nowhere 
is  there  any  examination  of  the  questions 
raised  in  "J 'Accuse."  Not  a  syllable  con- 
cerning the  third  chapter  of  the  book,  which 
none  the  less  occupies  178  pages  out  of  the 
total  of  370.  Nowhere  do  we  find  the  prom- 
ised *  *  overwhelming  evidence. '  *  Schiemann  *s 

60 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

production  is,  in  fact,  a  63-page  history  of 
the  events  leading  np  to  the  War  presented 
from  the  German  nationalist  standpoint. 

But  while  the  author  of  *'J'Accuse,"  in 
his  history  of  the  events  leading  up  to  the 
War,  at  any  rate  makes  use  of  official  docu- 
ments and  authorities,  the  Herr  Professor 
rakes  together,  without  discrimination, 
everything  which  falls  to  his  hand  which  may 
serve  in  any  way  to  lay  bare  the  infamy  of 
the  enemies  of  Germany.  What  would  he 
have  said  if  **  J'Accuse"  had  taken  the  same 
course,  and  had  based  his  accusations  upon 
the  senseless  ravings  dished  up  in  the  news- 
papers, reviews,  and  publications  of  the  Pan- 
German  League  (AUdeutscher  Verband), 
the  Defence  League  (Wehrverein),  the  Navy 
League  (Flottenverein),  the  Peasant  League 
(Bauembund),  &c.,  &c.?  Doubtless  he  would 
have  pointed  out  indignantly  that  the 
Deutsche  Tageszeitung,  the  Tdgliche  Rund- 
schau, the  Post,  the  Kreuzzeitung ,  the  Rhein- 
isch-Westfdlische  Zeitung,  the  Alldeutschen 

61 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

Blatter,'^  and  others,  do  not  express  the  views 
of  the  German  Government,  that  in  Germany 
any  man  can  write  what  he  pleases,  and  that 
it  would  be  madness  to  quote  the  personal 
opinions  of  crazy  devotees  of  world-suprem- 
acy as  proofs  of  a  desire  for  war  upon  the 
part  of  the  German  Government.  In  this  we 
should  support  him  unreservedly,  and  we  are 
therefore  all  the  more  astonished  that,  though 
he  does  not  scruple  to  reproach  others  with 
being  unscientific  and  libellous,  he  himself 
quotes  without  sense  or  discrimination  from 
chauvinistic  leaflets,  private  expressions  of 

•The  Deutsche  Tageszeitung  (Berlin)  is  the  organ  of  the 
Prussian  Junkera  Graf  Reventlow  is  a  member  of  its  staff. 
It  is  edited  by  Dr.  Georg  Oertel.  The  Tdgliche  Rundschau 
(Berlin),  edited  by  Heinrich  Rippler,  represents  the  Inde- 
pendent National  section  in  politics.  The  Post  (Berlin), 
edited  by  Dr.  H.  Pohl,  is  Independent  Conservative.  The 
Kreuzzeitung  (properly  entitled  the  Neue  Preussische  Zei- 
tung),  published  in  Berlin,  and  edited  by  Dr.  H.  Wendland 
and  Hauptmann  G.  Foertsch,  is  strongly  Conservative  and 
Evangelical.  The  Bheinisch-Westfdlische  Zeitung  is  pub- 
lished at  Essen.  It  represents  Independent  National  ideas 
and  the  armament  factories.  The  Alldeutschen  Blatter,  a 
more  recent  production,  is  the  organ  of  the  Pan-Gernanic 
movement. — Ed. 

62 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

opinion,  and  obscure  scribblers  belonging  to 
the  countries  of  the  Quadruple  Entente,  and 
treats  these  as  ** overwhelming  evidence"  of 
the  desire  of  these  countries  for  war.^ 

What  must  be  the  mental  condition  of  this 
German   celebrity  that  he   should  dare  to 

'As  an  example  of  the  seriousness  with  which  Schiemann 
sets  out  to  write  history,  he  quotes  at  great  length  the  pam- 
phlet, "La  Guerre  qui  vient,"  by  Francis  Delaisi,  and  de- 
clares that  it  was  at  once  bought  up  and  cancelled  by  the 
French  Government,  but  that,  on  the  outbreak  of  the  war, 
it  was  immediately  reprinted.  With  regard  to  this  pamphlet 
(which  was  published  for,  and  addressed  to,  the  very  limited 
and  special  public  who  were  readers  of  Gustavo  Herve's 
Guerre  Sociale,  which  was  at  that  time  BtUl  definitely  anti- 
militarist)  :  firstly,  it  was  not  accessible  to  the  general  read- 
ing public;  secondly,  it  never  went  beyond  the  first  edition; 
thirdly,  it  was  never  objected  to  by  the  French  Government; 
and,  fourthly,  it  was  not  reprinted  after  the  outbreak  of  the 
war.  In  all  probability,  the  unsold  balance  of  the  first  edi- 
tion is  BtUl  reposing  in  the  offices  of  the  Guerre  Sociale. 
But  the  anti-English  tendency  of  the  pamphlet  was  so  se- 
ductive to  Herr  Schiemann  that  his  imagination  accords  it 
the  honour  of  State  proceedings,  and  represents  Monsieur 
Delaisi,  who  before  the  war  was  scarcely  known  outside 
Paris,  as  the  one  enlightened  intelligence  in  France.  That 
this  same  Delaisi,  in  his  speeches  and  writings,  pleaded  ener- 
getically for  an  understanding  with  Grermany  is  a  fact  which 
Herr  Schiemann  naturally  ignores,  since  this  second  aspect 
of  the  man  would  not  harmonise  with  his  picture  of  a  France 
frantic  for  revanche. 

63 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

serve  us  up  such  a  hotch-potch  of  nursery- 
tales  as  an  answer  to,  and  a  refutation  of,  a 
clearly  reasoned  work,  which  may  have  its 
faults,  but  which,  after  all,  is  not  to  be  dis- 
posed of  by  the  back-stairs  gossip  of  Euro- 
pean diplomacy?  Why  did  he  entitle  his 
pamphlet  **A  Slanderer,"  when  he  not  only 
does  not  examine  the  most  important  section 
of  the  alleged  slander,  but  even  admits,  in 
his  incoherent  history  of  the  events  leading 
up  to  the  War,  that  Germany  is  waging  a 
preventive  war,  thereby  indirectly  corrobo- 
rating the  statements  of  the  author  of 
**  J'Accuse"!  It  is  a  stain  upon  the  reputa- 
tion of  German  scholarship  that  one  of  its 
representatives  should  be  seen  banging  his 
fists  on  the  table  and  pouring  forth  such 
ignorant  twaddle,  just  as  if  we  were  simple- 
tons who  had  only  to  believe  whatever  Herr 
Schiemann  chose  to  describe  as  **  overwhelm- 
ing evidence." 

But  we  are  not  simpletons,  and  we  there- 
fore maintain  that,  since  the  Herr  Professor 

64 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

still  owes  us  a  proof  of  his  assertions,  since 
he  has  jumbled  together  in  a  worse  than 
unscientific  fashion  an  extremely  futile  and 
subjective  history  of  the  events  leading  up 
to  the  War  (which,  even  if  it  were  intrinsi- 
cally valuable  from  beginning  to  end,  would 
still  prove  nothing  against  **J*Accuse"), 
and,  into  the  bargain,  by  means  of  his  own 
peculiar  professorial  logic,  argues  that 
*  ^preventives*  really  means  ** defensive** 
(thus  indirectly  corroborating  the  accusations 
of  the  ''slanderer"),  it  would  not  be  a  mis- 
print if  the  title  of  his  book  were  also  ap- 
pended as  its  signature. 

#  *  *  *  * 

The  pamphlet  by  the  field-grey  academi- 
cian demands  even  less  serious  examination 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  refutation  for 
which  we  are  seeking. 

It  is  a  regrettable  fact,  though  no  doubt  a 
dispensation  of  Providence,  that  in  our  Ger- 
man academicians,  for  all  their  learning  and 
their  earnestness,  there  is  always  a  touch  of 

65 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

tlie  ridiculous.  This  one,  for  instance,  in  the 
very  first  line,  is  seized  with  horror  that 
anyone  should  exist  capable  of  writing  such  a 
book  {*'so  ein  Buck'').  In  fact,  the  book  dis- 
tresses him  to  such  an  extent  that  he  feels 
drawn  to  it  with  **that  mixture  of  horror  and 
loathing  which  impels  us  to  the  spot  upon 
some  lonely  road  where  an  unexpiated  mur- 
der has  been  committed." 
>'  This  romantic  and  gruesome  phantasy  is 
(  pervaded  not  only  by  the  servility  which  leads 
so  many  German  academicians  to  confuse 
loyalty  io  one's  King  with  love  of  one's 
country,  )but  also  by  a  prepossession  which 
makes  discussion  absolutely  impossible. 

Let  us,  then,  leave  this  gentleman  the  aca- 
demic joy  of  having  contributed  his  log  to 
the  wood-pile  on  which  "  J'Accuse"  is  bum- 
J  ing.  We  respect  the  superstition  of  old 
I  people,  even  when  it  evokes  a  smile.  Let  us 
respect  the  field-grey  temper  of  this  acad- 
emician, who,  to  be  sure,  is  not  yet  old,  but 
has  already  learnt  to  wriggle  for  the  bait 

66 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

upon  which  at  some  future  date  will  giitter, 
we  trust,  the  highest  honours  of  the  Royal 

Prussian  Academy  of  Learning. 

*  *  *  *  * 

The  ''Reflections  of  a  Swiss  Neutral  on 
the  Book  *  J 'Accuse*  "  are  unfortunately, 
for  the  most  part,  only  reflections  on  the  un- 
patriotic depravity  of  the  writer.  This  neu- 
tral, too,  was  inspired  by  an  inward  horror 
at  the  vileness  of  a  man  who  should  dare  to 
bring  an  accusation  against  the  Government 
of  his  country.  From  the  fourth  line,  in 
which  Herr  Weber  (the  author  of  these  ** Re- 
flections") speaks  of  the  **  arrogant  tone  and 
unreliable  statements  of  the  book,*'  we  guess 
that  here  again  we  need  not  expect  to  find  any 
genuine  discussion.  And,  in  fact,  Herr 
Weber  contends  on  the  third  page  that  this 
**  J*Accuse"  fellow  cannot  possibly  be  a  Ger- 
man patriot;  he  even  discovers  that  ''every 
line  of  his  work  breathes  hatred  of  the  Ger- 
many which  had  grown  so  strong  and  power- 
ful since  1870." 

67 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

What  has  impelled  this  neutral  to  give  so 
much  prominence  to  a  question  of  the  senti- 
ments of  the  author — a  question  which,  in 
the  first  place,  is  alien  to  the  discussion,  and, 
in  the  second  place,  does  not  in  the  least 
concern  a  neutral — remains  his  own  secret, 
regarding  which  we  may  form  our  own 
theories. 

And  then  the  logic  with  which  Herr  Weber 
assails  the  book!  To  the  statement  of  the 
author  of  **  J'Accuse'*  that  Germany  is  wag- 
ing a  war  of  aggression,  he  replies,  for 
example,  with  a  toast  of  the  King  of  Italy 
(at  Naples,  on  March  16th,  1914),  in  which 
William  II.  is  celebrated  as  **the  strongest 
bulwark  of  the  peace  of  Europe'*;  and  then 
with  a  telegram  of  Victor  Emmanuel  to  the 
Emperor  of  Austria,  in  which  the  latter  is 
assured  that  Italy  will  maintain  an  *' attitude 
of  sincere  friendship**  towards  Austria- 
Hungary.  **  Would  the  King  have  used  such 
words  of  a  frivolous  disturber  of  the  peace  of 
Europe?"  demands  our  neutral  with  a  sim- 

68 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

plicity  which  is  ahnost  disarming.  He  re- 
gards the  documents  discovered  by  the  Ger- 
man Government  in  Brussels  as  "historical 
documents  of  incontestable  value  for  anyone 
who  loves  the  truth,"  and  he  cites  a  report 
of  the  Belgian  Minister  at  Berlin,  dated  May 
30th,  1908,  which,  in  his  opinion,  **  affords 
decisive  evidence  in  regard  to  the  origin  of 
the  War." 

What  are  we  to  make  of  it?  Now  the 
question  of  the  responsibility  for  this  War 
is  decided  by  a  royal  toast  dating  four  months 
before  its  outbreak,  and  now  by  the  report 
of  a  diplomat  dating  six  years  before  its  out- 
break. But,  in  this  case,  I  will  not  withhold 
my  own  contributions  to  the  argument.  I 
therefore  refer  Herr  Weber  to  the  note- 
worthy fact  that,  in  the  'eighties,  a  certain 
Deroulede  openly  preached  a  war  of  revanche 
against  Germany,  and  that,  even  as  early  as 
at  the  time  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  France 
leagued  herself  with  Sweden  in  the  most  ma- 
licious way,  with  a  view  to  compassing  the 

69 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

destruction  of  Germany.  Space  unfortu- 
nately does  not  permit  me  to  bring  forward 
still  further  proofs  of  the  mendacity  of  the 
book  **J*Accuse.'*  Nevertheless,  it  is  suffi- 
ciently clear  from  the  facts  adduced  by  Herr 
Weber  and  supplemented  by  myself  that  the 
hypothesis  of  the  author  of  "J'Accuse,'* 
namely,  that  Germany  and  Austria-Hungary 
in  the  period  between  July  23rd  and  August 
1st,  1914,  intentionally  provoked  the  War, 
cannot  be  anything  else  than  an  infamous 
lie.  Anyone  who  fails  to  see  that,  as  a  result 
of  these  historical  facts,  no  other  course  lay 
open  to  Germany  on  August  1st,  1914,  than 
to  declare  war  on  Russia  is  simply  a  block- 
head. 

Just  as  Weber,  a  late  Judge  of  the  Con- 
federation, seems  to  be  entirely  ignorant  of 
the  fact  that  a  crime  cannot  be  excused  on 
the  plea  that  the  culprit  knew  that  another 
man  intended  to  commit  the  same  crime  and 
wished  to  forestall  him,  he  seems  to  be  equally 
ignorant  that  a  crime  cannot  be  justified  by 

70 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

insisting  on  the  very  dubious  past  of  the 
victim  of  it.  The  manner  in  which  he  deals 
with  the  documents  discovered  in  Brussels 
not  only  amounts  to  a  justification  of  Ger- 
many's violation  of  the  neutrality  of  Bel- 
gium, but  also  shows  that  what  he  is  pre- 
senting us  with  is  merely  an  uncritical  repe- 
tition of  the  statements  of  the  German 
Press.  What  would  he  say  of  a  Belgian  who, 
in  the  event  of  the  violation  of  the  neutrality 
of  Switzerland  by  one  of  the  Great  Powers, 
should  bring  forward  the  documents  which 
that  Great  Power  would  certainly  discover  in 
Berne  as  ''incontestable  evidence,*'  and 
should  deduce  from  them  that  Switzerland 
was  not  really  neutral,  but  that  she  had  sold 
herself,  and  consequently  only  deserved  her 
fate  ?  As  if  there  were  not  everywhere  and  at  , 
all  times  people  who  make  it  their  busiuess 
to  cast  aspersions  on  the  victim  of  a  crime 
with  so  much  persistence  and  ingenuity  as 
to  convey  the  impression  that  a  service  has 
been  done  to  humanity,  and  that  the  criminal 
71 


i 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

is,  in  fact,  a  hero  who  has  relieved  the  human 
race  of  an  encumbrance.  Such  Jesuitical  and 
juridical  devices,  with  the  help  of  which  a 
counsel  frequently  succeeds  in  talking  away 
the  central  issue  of  a  debate  in  a  court  of 
justice,  may  deceive  the  vulgar  multitude 
(especially  if  they  are  precluded  from  read- 
ing any  other  version  of  the  story),  but  not 
the  serious  logician,  and  still  less  the  honest 
neutral.  We  should  have  expected  from  a 
genuine  neutral  that  he  would  have  listened 
with  some  scepticism  to  the  defence  of  the 
Imperialist  advocate ;  our  Swiss,  on  the  con- 
trary, demonstrates  such  loud  and  unques- 
tioning approval  that  one  might  almost 
imagine  that  he  belonged  to  the  claque  of  the 
Berlin  Court  Theatre. 

After  Herr  Weber  has  devoted  eleven 
pages  to  narrating  the  history  of  the  events 
leading  up  to  the  War  after  his  own  fashion 
(Imperial  toasts  and  telegrams,  Belgian 
documents,  and  a  book  by  an  English  labour 
leader  published  in  1912),  he  makes  a  feeble 

72 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

attempt  in  the  remaining  nine  pages  to  exam- 
ine the  questions  actually  propounded  in 
* '  J  ^Accuse. ' '  But  since  any  adequate  exami- 
nation would  be  impossible  in  the  space  of 
nine  pages,  all  that  he  actually  does  is  to  make 
a  tour  of  the  subject  and  then  leave  it.  To 
anyone  who  still  had  any  doubts  on  the  sub- 
ject it  must  now  have  become  clear  that  this 
Swiss  is  a  secret  votary  of  Imperialistic 
methods  and  of  the  divine  right  of  kings. 
For  instance,  on  page  14  he  declares  very 
modestly:  ''It  might  well  be  suggested  that 
Serbia  could  have  been  punished  by  other 
effective  means  .  .  .  but  I  do  not  presume 
...  to  reproach  Austria  with  lying  and 
trickery  when  she  solemnly  declared  before 
all  Europe  that  she  would  not  seize  so  much 
as  a  square  foot  of  Serbian  territory  .  .  .*'; 
while  on  page  19  he  asserts  very  positively: 
"And  the  feeling  of  Kaiser  Wilhelm  that  it 
was  incompatible  with  the  honour  and  dignity 
of  Austria  that  a  question  concerning  her 
relations  with  Serbia  should  be  submitted  to 
73 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

the  decision  of  a  conference,  was  certainly 
justified.*'  In  other  words:  I,  a  republican, 
have  much  too  sacred  a  respect  for  the  diplo- 
macy of  Austria  to  venture  upon  a  criticism 
of  her  conduct;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  by 
reason  of  this  same  respect,  I  look  upon  it  as 
quite  natural  that  the  "feeling"  of  a  single 
individual  should  decide  absolutely  the  ques- 
tion of  peace  and  war  in  Europe.  This  ser- 
vile obeisance  before  the  views  and  judg- 
ments of  those  in  high  place  may  do  for  a 
Prussian  district  councillor,  but  we  could 
willingly  forgo  it  in  the  free  citizen  of  a  highly 
developed  republic.  If  Tell  and  Winkelried 
and  Bubenberg  had  treated  the  Austrian 
dynasty  with  the  same  respect  on  the  several 
occasions  in  the  Middle  Ages  when  the  latter 
set  out  to  "punish"  the  "machinations"  of 
the  Confederacy  (history  is  constantly  re- 
peating itself,  as  Nietzsche  says),  Switzer- 
land at  the  present  day  would  be,  not  a  free 
democracy,  but  a  kind  of  Austrian  Helvetia. 
Anyone  who,  like  Herr  Weber,  turns  the 

74 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

writing  of  history  into  a  prostration  before 
the  great  ones  of  the  earth  is  reduced  to 
regarding  us  as  cattle  to  be  slaughtered 
and  enslaved  for  ''higher  ends,"  and  the 
Winkelrieds  as  the  hooligans  of  the  world's 
history. 

The  strangest  thing,  however,  about  Herr 
Weber's  pamphlet  is  the  grandiloquent  and 
patriotic  conclusion,  which  gives  the  impres- 
sion that  it  might  have  been  composed  by 
the  editor  of  the  Deutsche  TageszeitungJ 
''Such  statements  as  these  [those  of  the 
author  of  "J 'Accuse"]  could  only  come  from 
a  degenerate  son  of  his  fatherland ! ' '  exclaims 
Herr  Weber  with  pious  indignation. 

I  could  scarcely  believe  my  eyes.  Can  it  be, 
then,  that  this  moralist  knows  nothing  of  the 
sad  history  of  intellectual  freedom  in  Ger- 
many? Has  it  never  been  brought  to  the 
knowledge  of  this  Swiss  that  nearly  all  those 
whom  we  revere  as  the  greatest  spiritual 
heroes  and  the  most  ardent  patriots  of  Ger- 

'See  note  on  p.  62. 

75 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

many  have  been  slandered  and  persecuted 
during  their  lifetime  as  ''degenerate  sons  of 
their  fatherland'*?  Ernest  Moritz  Amdt,^ 
for  example,  who  to-day  is  regarded,  even  by 
our  blood-and-iron  fanatics,  as  a  pattern  of 
true  German  patriotism,  was  for  years  de- 
nounced to  the  German  public  as  a  rebel  and 
a  slanderer.  Gutzkow,®  an  ornament  of  Ger- 
man literature,  suffered  imprisonment  for  his 
opinions.  JahUj^*^  the  father  of  German  ath- 
letics, one  of  the  most  courageous  patriots 
concerned  in  the  rising  of  1813|  was  for  years 
imprisoned  as  a  demagogue  and  placed  un- 
der humiliating  police  supervision.  Fritz 
Renter,^ ^  one  of  the  greatest  German  poets 

•Amdt.    See  note  on  p.  45. 

"Karl  Gutzkow  (1811-1878)  was  the  author  of  several 
brUliant  romances  and  playi,  including  "Die  Bitter  vom 
Geist"  and  "Zopf  und  Schwert."  Hia  liberal  ideas  in 
religion  led  to  the  complete  banning  of  his  writings  for  a 
time,  and  brought  him  a  term  of  imprisonment  (1835). — Eb. 

"Jahn.    See  note  on  p.  44. 

"Fritz  Eeuter  (1810-1874)  was  author  of  some  of  the 
most  h\imorou8  and  racy  stories  of  coimtry  life  in  German 
literature.  He  wrote  in  the  Plattdeutsch  dialect.  **Ut 
meine  Stromtid  "  is  his  best-known  work. — Ed. 

76 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

of  the  last  century,  was  sentenced  to  death 
for  his  labours  on  behalf  of  the  German 
Students'  Association,  then  let  off  with  thirty- 
years'  imprisonment,  and  l&nally  restored  to 
freedom  after  serving  seven  years  of  this  sen- 
tence. And  so  with  every  other  champion  of 
the  German  ideal  of  freedom — Borne,  Laube, 
Herwegh,  Wienbarg,  Freiligrath,  Prutz, 
Pfau,^2  &c.  Very  long  and  unspeakably  sad 
is  the  list  of  German  poets,  thinkers,  and 
patriots  (I  do  not  even  include  Heine  among 
them)  who  have  had  to  endure  abuse  and 
ignominy,  imprisonment  and  exile,  merely  be- 
cause they  felt  and  expressed  democratic- 
republican  sentiments.  Is  Herr  "Weber  aware 
of  the  scandalous  fact  that  the  composer  of 
our  national  hymn,  ''Deutschland,  Deutsch- 
land  uber  AUes"   (Hoffmann  von  Fallera- 

"Ludwig  Borne,  Heinrich  Laube,  Ferdinand  Freiligrath, 
Greorg  Herwegh,  and  the  others  mentioned  belonged  to  the 
"Young  German"  Liberal  movement  of  1815-1848,  and  had 
all  to  endure  exile  and  the  banning  of  their  writings  in 
Germany. — Ed. 

77 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

leben)  ^^  endured  for  years  the  most  cruel 
persecution  from  the  German  Government, 
who  were  not  satisfied  until  this  * '  degenerate 
son  of  his  fatherland'*  had  taken  refuge  in 
Mecklenburg?  And  that  little  change  has 
taken  place  in  Germany  since  the  time  of 
Mettemich^*  and  of  the  Socialist  legislation 
is  proved  by  the  case  of  Hauptmann  among 
many  other  incidents  of  the  last  century. 
Hauptmann,  Germany's  greatest  living  poet 

"August  Heinrich  Hoffmann,  bom  at  Fallersleben,  1798, 
wrote  the  famous  national  song,  ' '  Deutschland  iiber  AUes, ' ' 
in  Heligoland,  1841.  He  was  deprived  of  his  Professorship 
of  German  at  Breslau  in  1841  for  some  of  the  sentiments 
expressed  in  a  volume  of  Unpolitische  Lieder,  and  had  to 
endure  much  privation  and  annoyance  for  some  years  there- 
after.   He  died  in  1874,— Ed. 

"Klemens  Lothar  Menzel,  Fiirst  von  Mettemich  (1773- 
1859),  presided  at  the  Vienna  Congress,  1815,  and  was  For- 
eign Minister  of  Austria  from  that  date  to  1848,  when  he 
was  driven  out  by  the  revolution.  He  was  the  soul  of  the 
reactionary  and  despotic  influences  which  prevailed  on  the 
Continent  after  the  fall  of  Napoleon  I.  The  Viennese  police 
once  distinguished  themselves  under  his  regime  by  confiscat- 
ing a  new  edition  of  Copernicus  because  the  title  of  the 
volume  b^an  with  the  worJs  "De  Eevolutionibus " — the 
movements  of  the  heavenly  bodies  being  the  "revolutions" 
referred  to. — Ed. 

78 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

— who  at  the  present  moment  is  already  dec- 
orated with  the  Order  of  the  Red  Eagle,  that 
is  to  say,  who  is  far  from  possessing  the 
intellectual  courage  of  his  forerunners — was 
brutally  reproached  by  the  German  Crown 
Prince  a  year  before  the  beginning  of  the 
War  (on  the  occasion  of  the  prohibition  of 
his  Breslau  festival  play)  as  a  degenerate  son 
of  his  fatherland.^*^  We  may  confidently  as- 
sert that  the  terror  manifested  by  the  Prusso- 
German  Government  at  any  kind  of  intellec- 
tual freedom  has  at  all  times  been  so  puerile 
tiiat  a  German  cannot  so  much  as  dot  the  "1" 
of  the  word  ''republic"  without  at  once  being 
howled  down  as  a  ''degenerate  son  of  his 
fatherland." 

A  degenerate  son  of  his  fatherland!     If 

"Grerhart  Hauptmann,  the  most  distinguished  figure  "in 
contemporary  German  literature,  a  Silesian  by  birth  (1862), 
was  commissioned  to  write  a  commemorative  drama  or  Fest- 
spiel  to  be  performed  at  Breslau  in  1913,  the  centenary  of 
the  Battle  of  Leipzig.  The  play  on  being  produced  was 
found  to  lay  more  stress  on  the  popular  uprising  of  1813 
than  on  the  part  played  by  Prussian  princes  or  generals, 
and  the  Crown  Prince  insisted  on  its  withdrawal. — Ed. 

79 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

this  alleged  free  Swiss  had  a  little  less  respect 
for  Prussian  State  discipline  and  a  little  more 
sense  of  the  ridiculous,  he  would  not  have 
written  as  he  has.  Yes,  he  might  certainly- 
very  well  have  spared  us  his  ** reflections." 
In  his  exceedingly  un-Swiss  eagerness  to  bow 
down  before  German  official  ideas,  he  pro- 
ceeds to  launch  a  terrible  anathema  against 
the  author  of  the  detestable  work  (the  word 
** degenerate"  in  particular  he  emphasises  in 
capital  letters).  He  has  only  succeeded  in 
provoking  a  smile.  And  inasmuch  as  the 
"degeneration"  to  which  Herr  Weber  refers 
has  always  been  in  Germany  a  sign  of  great- 
ness and  originality,  his  anathema  is  almost 
in  the  nature  of  a  high  compliment  to  the 

author  of  *'J'Accuse." 

*  *  •  •  • 

Among  the  many  articles  which  have  been 
published  in  Germany  in  answer  to  *'J'Ac- 
cuse,"  I  cannot  forbear  to  mention  the  very 
curious  article,  "A  German  Ephialtes," 
which  was  published  in  the  German  period- 

80 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

ical  Mdrz  (September  ISth,  1915),  and  which 
was  from  the  pen  of  the  Socialistic  Vice- 
President  of  the  Austrian  Chamber  of  Depu- 
ties, Herr  Pemerstorfer.  This  article  is 
typical  of  the  present  much-discussed  *' re- 
valuation of  all  values,*'  not  in  the  sense  in 
which  Nietzsche  intended  it,  but  in  the  sense 
in  which  Potsdam  has  effected  it  in  the  case 
of  those  who  were  yesterday  her  most  out- 
spoken enemies.  Moreover,  Herr  Pemer- 
storfer does  me  the  honour  of  making  a  com- 
parison between  my  own  book,^^  published  in 
May,  1914,  and  *  *  J  'Accuse  " ;  he  cites  me  as  in 
some  degree  an  instance  of  how  far  a  free- 
dom-loving German  may  prosecute  his  criti- 
cism without  incurring  the  danger  of  being 
put  in  the  pillory  as  an  unpatriotic  ruffian. 

It  is  a  satisfaction  to  me  that,  in  spite  of 
my  severe  criticism  of  the  German  Empire,  I 
should  still  be  accounted  by  Herr  Pemer- 

"*'Die  franzosische  Demokratie,  sozialpolitiscbe  Studien 
au8  Frankreicha  Kulturwerkstatt"  (Duncker  and  Humblot, 
Munich). 

81 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

storfer  not  only  a  German,  but  even  an 
*' apostle  of  freedom."  I  was  therefore  all 
the  more  astonished  at  the  patriotic  emotion, 
bordering  on  hysteria,  with  which  this  Social- 
ist regards  *' J 'Accuse, '  *  an  emotion  rather 
befitting  the  president  of  some  paltry  pro- 
vincial war  society.  To  be  sure,  he  admits 
that  the  conduct  of  the  Central  Powers  in 
this  War  lends  itself  to  criticism  on  various 
heads  (and  especially  in  the  matter  of  the 
violation  of  Belgium's  neutrality),  and  that, 
for  the  purpose  of  making  a  critical  analysis 
of  "J 'Accuse,"  it  would  be  necessary  to  in- 
vestigate the  individual  statements  contained 
in  it.  Instead,  however,  of  doing  this,  or  of 
at  least  promising  us  an  adequate  investiga- 
tion of  the  book  at  a  later  date,  Herr  Perner- 
storfer  is  seized  with  an  attack  of  Teuto- 
maniac  wrath.  He  searches  out  the  most 
obscene  words  in  which  to  give  vent  to  his 
indignation,  and  finally  exclaims,  in  the  bit- 
terness of  his  anger,  that  ''the  simplest  and 
most  natural  thing  to  do  would  be  to  dispose 

82 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

of  the  author  of  the  book  *  J 'Accuse'  with  a 
well-merited  kick." 

As  if  the  book  could  be  "disposed  of*  by 
this  kind  of  horse-play !  Herr  Pemerstorf er 
ought  to  know  that  abuse  is  not  argument, 
and  that,  in  fact,  such  abuse  has  often  been  a 
proof  that  the  victim  of  it  was  in  the  right. 
Also  Herr  Pemerstorfer  should  consider  a 
little  the  curious  impression  made  by  such 
patriotic  extravagance  coming  from  a  Social- 
ist. For  the  Socialists,  who  during  the  last 
forty  years  have  threatened  all  kinds  of  revo- 
lutionary intentions  and  have  scoffed  at  and 
fought  against  the  national  idea  as  ^^bour- 
geois stupidity,"  are  certainly  playing  a 
comic  role  if  they  are  to-day  to  perform  the 
function  of  chuckers-out  on  behalf  of  those 
whom  they  were  accusing  only  yesterday  of 
exploitation,  chauvinism,  and  superficiality. 
I  could  show  Herr  Pemerstorfer  articles  in 
which  (at  a  time  when  such  things  were  still 
permitted)  he  made  merry  over  those  nar- 
row-minded people  whose  highest  ideal  was 

83 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

their  fatherland.  But  when  it  came  to  the 
point,  when  the  Internationalists  at  length 
had  an  opportunity  of  carrying  out  their  pre- 
arranged programme,  and  of  showing  those 
horns  and  claws  of  which  they  had  bragged 
all  over  Europe  until  everyone  was  sick  of 
them,  lo  and  behold!  these  revolutionary 
rams  suddenly  transformed  themselves  into 
harmless  sheep,  prepared  to  allow  their  last 
vestige  of  wool  to  be  shorn  for  the  purpose  of 
keeping  warm  that  class-domination  which 
had  once  been  so  shamefully  abused.^^  To  be 
sure,  we  bear  no  ill-will  to  Herr  Pemerstorf  er 
because  he  is  one  of  the  shorn,  but  it  certainly 
strikes  us  as  rather  ridiculous  that  he  should 
now  have  become  more  German — ^that  is  to 

"  Read,  for  example,  the  stirring  appeal,  containing  the 
most  scathing  indictment  of  the  Austrian  Government,  which 
was  issued  by  the  Social-Democratic  section  of  the  Austrian 
Imperial  Council  on  the  publication  of  the  ultimatum  to 
Serbia,  and  in  the  composition  of  which  Herr  Pernerstorfer, 
as  one  of  the  principal  leaders  of  this  section,  doubtless  had 
a  hand.  The  attitude  which  he  adopted  towards  the  same 
Government  a  few  weeks  later,  and,  as  we  see,  maintained 
with  gusto,  is  in  the  most  glaring  contradiction  with  this 
appeal. 

84 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

say,  more  rowdily  patriotic — than  the  Pan- 
Germans.  And  although  Herr  Pemer- 
storfer's  abusiveness  recalls  that  of  a  police 
functionary,  in  whose  case  curses  and  kicks 
are  rather  a  part  of  his  calling  than  an  ex- 
pression of  the  heart,  all  the  same,  we  do  not 
believe  that  Borne  was  right  when  he  declared 
savagely  that  the  people  of  every  nation  were 
slaves,  but  that  the  German  people  were  lack- 
eys. 

We  would  rather  believe  that  Borne 's 
bitter  scorn  is  not  applicable  to  Herr  Pemer- 
storfer,  and  we  confidently  hope  that  he  will 
rend  asunder  the  terrible  book  in  the  charac- 
ter of  a  respectable  representative  of  the 
*  'materialistic  conception  of  history.' '  Should 
he  fail  to  do  this,  there  would  certainly  be  no 
lack  of  people  to  point  out  that  Herr  Pemer- 
storfer's  attitude  furnished  an  illustration  of 
Borne 's  assertion,  and  this,  in  the  interest  of 
his  good  fame,  I  should  sincerely  regret.^^ 

"Since  Herr  Pemerstorfer  entitles  hig  article  "A  German 
Ephialtes, "  I  may  venture  to  point  out  that  there  are  two 

85 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

For  the  sake  of  completeness  we  must  refer 
here  to  the  pamphlet,  "The  Origin  of  the 
World-War  in  the  Light  of  the  Publications 
of  the  Powers  of  the  Triple  Entente,"  by 
Dr.  Karl  Helfferich  '^  (Georg  Stilke,  Berlin). 
It  is,  to  be  sure,  not  a  direct  reply  to  **  J'Ac- 
cuse,"  but,  since  its  author  is  the  present 
German  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  we  may 
regard  it  as  a  semi-oflficial  attempt  at  self- 

Ephialtes  in  Greek  history — a  rogue  who  betrayed  to  the 
Persians  the  footpath  to  the  pass  of  Thermopylae,  and  a 
sturdy  democrat  who  by  his  uncompromising  attitude  set  a 
limit  to  the  omnipotence  of  the  Areopagus  and  helped  on 
the  work  of  the  Athenian  democracy.  Both  have  been  re- 
garded as  traitors  to  their  country — the  first  by  every  decent 
man  in  modem  as  well  as  in  ancient  times,  the  second  only 
by  the  persons  in  power  in  his  day,  who  took  the  precaution 
of  having  him  assassinated. 

Things  have  not  changed  much  since  then.  The  Ephialtes 
of  the  second  order  are  regarded  now,  as  they  were  re- 
garded then,  as  traitors  to  their  country.  Only  that  at  the 
present  day  (as  is  proved  by  the  case  of  Liebknecht)  they  are 
murdered  by  their  own  comrades.  More  arrogant,  more 
positive,  more  autocratic  than  ever,  the  modern  Areopagus 
gazes  insolently  down  upon  the  Fatherland,  for  over  it 
Pemerstorfer  and  his  like  are  mounting  zealous  guard, 

"Dr.  Karl  Theodor  Helfferich  (6.  1872)  was  a  Professor 
of  Political  Economy,  who  became  Director  of  the  Deutsche 
Bank,  and  is  now  German  Finance  Minister. — Ed. 

86 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

vindication  on  the  part  of  the  Government. 

Unfortunately,  this  attempt  is  incomplete. 
Was  this  due  to  indolence,  or  the  sense  of  a 
clear  conscience,  or  want  of  time,  or  under- 
estimation of  his  readers'  competence  to 
form  their  own  judgments?  In  any  case, 
Dr.  Helfferich  dates  the  origin  of  the  War 
from  July  31st,  and  tells  us  on  the  second 
page  of  his  work  that  it  was  Russia  who  defi- 
nitely kindled  the  conflagration,  and  that  it 
wag  ''her  general  mobilisation,  ordered  by 
the  Czar  in  the  early  morning  of  July  31st, 
and  his  refusal  to  revoke  this  measure  when 
requested  to  do  so  by  Germany,"  which  was 
the  direct  cause  of  the  War. 

But  Dr.  Helfferich  knows  as  well  as  we  do 
that  the  crisis  which  led  to  the  World- War 
did  not  make  its  first  appearance  on  July 
31st,  but  on  July  23rd.  Before,  therefore,  we 
discuss  the  question  of  the  Russian  mobilisa- 
tion (which,  in  any  case,  was  a  result  of  ante- 
cedent events,  and  not  a  cause  in  itself)  we 
must  ask  him  to  be  so  kind  as  to  discuss  the 

87 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

numerous  other  diplomatic  incidents  which 
preceded  the  outbreak  of  the  War. 

For  instance,  I  do  not  understand  why  Dr. 
Helfferich  examines  in  such  detail  the  tele- 
grams which  were  exchanged  between  the 
Czar  and  William  II.  on  July  30th  and  July 
31st  while  he  makes  no  reference  whatever 
to  the  Czar's  telegram  of  July  29th  contain- 
ing the  proposal  that  the  Austro-Serbian  dis- 
pute should  be  submitted  to  the  Court  of 
Arbitration  at  The  Hague?  Was  such  a  pro- 
posal emanating  from  such  a  source,  consid- 
ered beneath  notice? 

In  regard  to  the  proposal  made  by  Grey 
(English  Blue  Book,  No.  88;  German  White 
Book,  p.  11)  that  Austria  should  content  her- 
self with  the  occupation  of  Belgrade  as  a 
pledge  for  a  satisfactory  settlement  of  her 
demands.  Dr.  Helfferich  remarks:  **This 
proposal  was  transmitted  by  Germany  to  the 
Austro-Hungarian  Government,  with  a 
recommendation;  likewise  by  the  French  and 
English  Ambassadors  to  the  Russian  Govem- 

8S 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

ment  (French  Yellow  Book,  No.  112)."  We 
are  delighted  to  have  this  information,  be- 
cause *'J'Accuse"  declares  that  no  such 
recommendation  was  ever  made  by  Germany. 
But,  in  order  to  enable  us  definitely  to  pro- 
claim the  statements  of  *' J'Accuse'*  as  false- 
hoods, Dr.  Helfferich  must  name  the  docu- 
ment which  (like  No.  112  of  the  French  Yel- 
low Book  in  the  case  of  Russia)  affords  proof 
that  Germany  did  recommend  the  proposal  to 
Austria.  In  view  of  the  lamentable  fact  that 
the  whole  world  is  striving  to  lay  the  blame 
for  the  World- War  at  the  door  of  Germany, 
Dr.  Helfferich  should  realise  that  the  bare 
assertion  that  Germany  recommended  this 
proposal  to  Vienna  is  not  sufficient. 

Dr.  Helfferich  declares  further:  ''The 
[above-mentioned]  proposal  [from  Grey] 
had  not  yet  been  answered  by  Austria,  and 
Russia  also  had  not  yet  published  her  views 
in  regard  to  it,  when  the  general  Russian  mo- 
bilisation was  carried  out."  But,  your  Ex- 
cellency, if  a  person  is  really  eager  to  find 

89 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

some  means  of  preserving  the  peace  (and 
surely  this  was  the  case  with  Austria)  he 
answers  such  proposals  immediately.  In  this 
instance  there  was  absolutely  nothing  for 
Russia  to  reply.  But  that  Austria,  from 
July  29th  to  July  31st,  should  have  found  no 
time  for  an  answer,  although  she  knew  that 
the  whole  of  Europe  was  waiting  in  agonised 
suspense,  hoping  for  a  peaceful  adjustment 
of  the  dispute — this  is  such  an  incredibly  dan- 
gerous dilatoriness  that  she  must  surely  have 
had  some  really  weighty  reason  for  it.  If 
anyone  should  say :  * '  I  have  not  yet  paid  up, 
and  already  the  bailiff  is  in  my  house,"  there 
would  be  something  a  little  comic  in  this 
**not  yet."  But  when  Dr.  Helfferich  merely 
writes :  *  *  Austria  had  not  yet  answered  and 
already  Russia  was  mobilising,"  there  is  an 
element  of  real  tragedy  in  his  "not  yet,"  be- 
cause on  this  "not  yet"  the  peace  of  the 
world  hung  suspended  for  three  days.  Why 
does  Herr  Helfferich  mock  his  readers  with 
these  tragi-comic  "not  yets"?    Is  it  possible 

90 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

that  he  does  not  realise  that  this  **not  yet" 
is  at  once  an  absurdity  and  an  admission  of 
guilt? 

Space  does  not  permit  us  to  examine  Dr. 
Helfferich's  composition  in  further  detail,  but 
it  will  be  clear  from  what  has  been  said  above 
that  it  is  serious  in  intention,  but  not  in  exe- 
cution. For  he  promises  us  an  examination 
:)f  the  subject  "in  the  light  of  the  publications 
of  the  Powers  of  the  Triple  Entente";  but  he 
actually  examines  not  one-fifth  of  those  pub- 
lications. This  arbitrary  selection  and  rejec- 
tion is  an  insult  to  our  much-extolled  German 
thoroughness.  Either  we  Germans  are  thor- 
ough, in  which  case  we  must  refer  to  and 
discuss  fully  all  the  available  documents;  or 
else — as  is  apparently  the  case  with  Dr.  Helf- 
ferich — ^we  have  not  time  for  this,  in  which 
case  we  naturally  convey  the  impression  of 
shirking  an  unpleasant  duty.  In  the  interests 
of  Germany's  cause  we  therefore  entreat  Dr. 
Helff erich  most  urgently  to  take  the  time  and 
pains  necessary  for  the  examination  of  all 
91 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

the  documents.  A  drama  is  meaningless  if 
only  its  final  act  is  presented.  The  Russian 
mohilisation  was  only  the  final  act  in  the  dip- 
lomatic drama  which  culminated  in  the  War. 
Since  Herr  Helfferich  simply  strikes  out  the 
first  act,  that  is  to  say,  makes  the  World- War 
originate  from  an  end  which  has  no  begin- 
ning, he  produces  on  the  thoughtful  reader 
the  quite  erroneous  impression  that  he  is 
Helfferich  {i.e.,  resourceful)  not  only  in  name, 
but  also  in  deed. 


92 


iv: 

We  have  seen  that  the  book  **J'Accnse," 
no  matter  what  fault  we  may  find  with  it,  is 
none  the  less  a  seriously  written,  logically 
constructed,  substantial  piece  of  work.  The 
sales  of  the  German  edition  already  amount 
to  30,000  copies,  and  it  has  been  published 
in  French,  English,  American,  Dutch,  and 
Swedish  translations,  and  reviewed  in  the 
Press  of  the  whole  civilised  world.^ 

While,  however,  expressions  of  apprecia- 
tion and  genuine  criticisms  of  this  work  have 
emanated  from  all  the  neutral  countries 
(especially  Holland,  the  United  States, 
Sweden,  and  Norway),  the  answers  to  it 
which  have  emanated  from  Germany  or  the 
friends  of  Germany  have  been,  considered  as 

*  Moreover,  Russian,  Italian,  and  Spanish  translations  are 
advertised  to  appear  shortly. 

93 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

impartial  investigations  of  the  truth,  abso- 
lutely valueless.  Anyone  who  reads  these 
answers  with  a  patriotic  predisposition  in 
their  favour  will,  if  he  has  any  intellectual 
integrity,  be  forced  to  admit  that  they  are 
not  only  worthless  from  a  legal  point  of  view, 
but  that  the  whole  tone  of  them  is  absolutely 
frivolous.  They  give  the  impression  of  an- 
swers which  have  been  written  because,  in 
view  of  the  enormous  sensation  created  by 
'*J*Accuse,**  the  necessity  of  some  reply  to 
the  book  was  felt  even  in  Germany.  I  only 
regret  that  the  tone  and  logic  of  these  replies 
must  necessarily  prejudice  thoughtful  read- 
ers rather  in  favour  of  **J'Accuse"  than 
otherwise. 

I  say  that  I  regret  this  fact  becanse,  as  a 
German,  I  do  earnestly  desire  that  '*J'Ac- 
cuse"  should  be  honestly  and  thoroughly  re- 
futed, that  is  to  say,  that  the  guiltlessness  of 
the  German  Government  in  regard  to  this 
War  should  be  incontestably  proved,  instead 
of  merely  asserted. 

94 


BECAUSE  I  A]V1  A  GERMAN 

But  even  after  the  book  has  been  genuinely 
refuted  we  must  not  merely  put  it  on  one 
side.  The  important  thing  in  '*  J'Accuse"  is 
not  that  it  makes  an  accusation  against  Ger- 
many and  Austria-Hungary,  but,  above  all, 
that  it  does  make  an  accusation.  The  legal 
standpoint  taken  by  "J 'Accuse"  in  dealing 
with  the  supposed  instigators  of  the  War  is, 
in  fact,  something  altogether  new  in  the 
literature  of  war.  Every  true  friend  of  peace 
who  is  resolved  to  combat  war  by  other  means 
than  learned  theories  and  systems  of  brother- 
hood will  agree  with  him  in  principle. 

Hitherto  men  have  been  under  the  spell  of  \ 
the  heroes  of  war.  They  have  looked  upon 
war  as  an  inevitable  phenomenon  which  oc- 
curs periodically  in  the  history  of  nations. 
The  decision  by  battle  has  been  regarded  by 
the  nations  as  a  decision  from  God,  and  they 
have  bowed  themselves  before  it  without 
question.  Although  now  and  then  some  mur- 
muring was  heard  when  the  miseries  of  war 
became  excessive,  yet  these  murmurers  never 

95 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

had  the  courage  to  treat  war  as  a  crime  and 
the  instigators  of  war  as  criminals.  The  enor- 
mity of  the  present  "War,  which  has  developed 
into  a  world-catastrophe,  promises  to  crush 
out  the  popular  superstition  concerning  war. 
At  the  present  day  the  whole  world  realises 
that  modern  war  is  a  senseless  stupidity  and 
an  unspeakahle  crime,  which  might  easily  be 
avoided  with  the  aid  of  a  little  goodwill  on 
the  part  of  those  who  hold  the  reins  of  gov- 
ernment. At  the  same  time  that  *  *  J  'Accuse ' ' 
boldly  institutes  proceedings  against  the 
originator  of  the  War  (in  which  it  is  to  be 
hoped  that  he  is  mistaken  concerning  the 
guilty  party),  he  breaks  finally  with  the  thou- 
sand-year-old tradition  of  the  respect  due 
from  the  nations  to  the  majesty  of  war.  At 
the  same  time  that  **  J'Accuse'*  demands  that 
the  fate  of  the  human  race  should  henceforth 
pe  decided  by  a  criminal  judge,  in  accordance 
fwith.  universally  admitted  notions  of  right,  he 
/sets  the  most  sacred  right  of  present-day 
j  humanity  (the  right  to  be  a  free  agent)  above 

96 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

the  irresponsible  right  of  the  supermen  of 
war.  In  this  respect  **J'Accuse"  is  an  ex- 
pression of  the  national  conscience  of  our 
time. 

In  other  words,  in  so  far  as  we  are  Ger- 
mans, it  is  a  matter  of  the  deepest  concern  to 
us  that  the  accusations  brought  by  **J*Ac- 
cuse"  against  the  German  Government 
should  be  adequately  refuted.  On  the  other 
hand,  in  so  far  as  we  are  pacifists  and  demo- 
crats, we  are  anxious  that  the  proceedings 
instituted  in  ''J'Accuse"  should  be  carried 
through  to  a  logical  conclusion.  We  desire 
to  know,  and  we  must  know,  who  was  to  blame 
for  the  War  (for  what  was  to  blame  we  have 
known  long  since). 

Starting  from  these  to  demands — ^the  pa- 
triotic demand  for  an  adequate  refutation, 
and  the  pacifist  demand  for  a  systematic  con- 
tinuation of  the  inquiry  into  the  question  of 
guilt — I  want  in  the  following  pages  to  dis- 
cuss briefly  the  fashion  in  which  we  Germans 
ought  to  enter  upon  the  discussion  of  this 
97 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

book,  if  we  do  not  wish  to  convey  the  im- 
pression that  Germany  is  under  the  intel- 
lectual dominance  of  mere  brawlers.  The  con- 
ditions requisite  for  such  a  discussion  are 
intellectual  integrity  and  judicial  impartiality 
— that  is  to  say,  the  conditions  observed  by 
all  honest  patriots,  historians,  seekers  after 
truth,  and  friends  of  peace. 

I. — The  history  of  the  events  leading  up  to 
the  War  does  not  in  the  least  belong  to  the 
discussion.  * '  J  'Accuse '  *  remarks  very  justly 
at  the  beginning  of  his  third  chapter :  * '  The 
history  of  antecedent  events  up  to  1914  evokea 
the  *  strong  suspicion'  (as  they  say  in  criminal 
procedure)  that  Germany  meant  to  have  the 
war  earlier  or  later.  .  .  .  Suspicion,  how- 
ever, is  not  the  same  thing  as  certainty.  That 
which  emerges  from  preceding  events  as  a 
probability  is  not  a  proof  of  guilt.  This 
proof  of  guilt  can  only  be  derived  from  the 
actual  circumstances  of  the  case — that  is  to 
say,  from  the  diplomatic  documents  which 
describe  the  genesis  of  the  World-War.'* 

98 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

We  need  have  no  more  talk,  then,  about 
antecedent  causes,  toasts,  books,  documents, 
and  diplomatic  ingenuities  dating  back  to  a 
time  before  July  23rd,  1914.  To  discuss  them 
in  this  connection  is  to  indulge  in  futile  pot- 
house ranting,  since  all  of  them  may  be 
twisted  and  turned  in  such  a  way  as  to  enable 
everyone  to  deduce  from  them  just  the  con- 
clusion that  he  sets  out  to  deduce.  We  have 
a  terrible  example  of  this  sort  of  thing  in 
Professor  Schiemann,  who  tries  to  make  us 
believe  that  ** preventive"  is  really  *' defen- 
sive," and  that  ** Imperialism"  is  really 
*' Pacifism." 

n. — The  sole  question  which  has  to  be  dis- 
cussed and  answered  is:  Who  was  it  who 
proceeded  from  threats  to  deeds?  Who  was 
it  who,  in  the  twentieth  century,  had  the 
criminal  hardihood  to  let  loose  war  upon 
Europe,  not  in  words,  not  in  carefully  laid 
intrigues,  not  as  a  diplomatic  threat  and  a 
possibility  on  paper,  but  war  as  an  iron  fact, 
99 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

as  murder  and  arson,  war  in  the  most  hellish 
sense  of  the  word? 

Since  these  fundamental  q:iestions  (I  can- 
not repeat  it  too  often)  can  ever  be  satisfac- 
torily answered  by  ingeniously  compounded 
histories  of  the  events  preceding  the  War, 
since  certain  German  professors  are  not 
ashamed  to  approve  the  principle  of  the  pre- 
cautionary war,  and  by  judicious  lying  to  turn 
the  precautionary  war  into  a  defensive  war 
(a  proceeding  which  is,  of  course,  utterly 
incompatible  with  reasonable  discussion),  we 
can  only  arrive  at  an  authoritative  answer  if 
(1)  the  diplomatic  negotiations  which  imme- 
diately preceded  the  War  are  examined  with 
judicial  impartiality,  and  if  (2)  we  find  some 
standard  of  right  universally  valid  for  all 
parties,  from  the  standpoint  of  which  the 
proceedings  may  be  conducted,  and  in  the 
name  of  which  justice  shall  be  administered. 
Upon  these  suppositions  **J*Accuse**  poses, 
examines,  and  answers  the  following  ques- 
tions :— ■ 

100 


H, 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

//    What  was  the  reason  for  the  insulting  tone  || 

C  of  the  Austrian  ultimatum  to  Serbia,  which  11 

i    made  demands  such  as  never  before  in  history// 

have  been  made  to  an  independent  State?       f 

What  was  the  reason  for  the  blunt  refusal 
of  Austria  when  the  Powers  of  the  Triple 
Entente  begged  for  an  extension  of  time  for 
the  Serbian  answer? 

Why  was  the  Serbian  answer  (which  aston- 
ished  the  whole  of  Europe  by  its  humility,  and 
therefore  promised  a  complete  success  for 
Austrian  diplomacy)  none  the  less  refused  by 
Austria? 

Why  would  not  Austria  condescend  to  dis- 
cuss the  only  points  in  the  Serbian  answer 
(5  and  6)  which  remained  in  dispute? 

Why  was  Sir  Edward  Grey's  proposal  for 
a  conference  of  the  Ambassadors  of  the  four 
Powers  who  were  not  involved  in  the  dispute 
eaggrly.  accepted  by  all  the  States  with  the 
exception  of  Germany  and  Austria-Hungary? 

WTiy  did  Germany  declare  (German  White 
101 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

Book,  p.  9)  that  Austria  *^  could  not  be  sum- 
moned before  a  European  trihi^nal"? 

Why  did  Austria  declare,  when  Grey 
showed  the  absurdity  of  this  objection,  that 
**she  must  decline  the  English  proposal" 
(German  White  Book,  p.  9)  ? 

Why,  when  Germany  had  declined  Grey*s 
proposal  and  had  proposed  instead  a  direct 
negotiation  between  Vienna  and  Petrograd, 
did  Count  Berchtold  declare  to  the  Russian 
Ambassador  that  "Austria  would  neither 
recede  from  her  position  nor  enter  into  any 
discussion  in  regard  to  the  Serbian  Note" 
(English  Blue  Book,  Russian  Orange  Book, 
German  White  Book),  and  in  this  way  nullify 
^the  proposal  of  his  own  ally! 

Why  did  Herr  von  Jagow  make  no  reply 
whatever  to  the  proposal  made  by  Grey  two 
days  after  Austria's  declaration  of  war  to 
Serbia — ^namely,  that  Austria  should  satisfy 
herself  with  the  occupation  of  Belgrade  and 
the  neighbouring  districts  as  a  pledge  for  a 
satisfactory  settlement  of  her  demands  and 
102 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

allow  to  the  other  Powers  time  and  opportu- 
nity for  mediation  between  Austria  and 
Russia? 

Why  did  Austria  herself  make  no  answer 
either  to  Grey^s  nrst  proposal,  or  to  Sazo- 
nof^s  first  proposal,  while  Herr  von  Jagow 
only  replied  curtly  to  the  first  suggestion  for 
an  agreement  made  by  Sazonof  (Russian 
Orange  Book,  No.  60)  that  it  could  not  be 
accepted  by  Austria? 

Why  did  Austria  and  Germany  make  no 
reply  whatever  to  SaaMfllils  second  proposal 
(Russian  Orange  Book,  No.  67),  which  is  in 
the  nature  of  an  amalgamation  with  Grev^s 
proposal? 

Why  did  Germany  never  definitely  counsel 
her  Austrian  ally  to  moderation  in  her  con- 
flict with  Serbia,  although  it  is  actually  ad- 
mitted in  the  German  White  Book  'Hhat  in 
this  we  were  fully  aware  that  in  the  con- 
tingency of  an  attack  by  Austria-Hungary 
upon  Serbia  Russia,  too,  might  be  brought 
into  the  arena,  and  that  we  ourselves,  in 
103 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

consequence  of  our  treaty  obligations,  might 
also  be  drawn  into  a  war"? 

Why  did  Germany  speak  with  such  insist- 
ence of  a  localisation  of  the  Austro-Serbian 
dispute  when,  from  the  above  sentence,  it  is 
clear  that  a  localisation  was  an  absolute  im- 
possibility, and  that  therefore  salvation 
would  have  to  be  sought  in  its  intemationali- 
sation? 

Why  was  the  dispatch  of  the   insulting 

Austrian  Note  to  Serbia  approved  in  Berlin, 

f  j     although  it  was  realised  that  Russia  might 

\  /  /  intervene  and  that  the  result  might  be  a 

1 1    European  war! 

Why  riifl  pnf  gprnq^Tiy  rccommcud  to 
Vienna  Grey's  request  that  the  humble  an- 
swer from  Serbia  might  at  least  be  allowed  to 
serve^s-84)asi.s  for  further  negotiations? 

iWhy  does  the  German  White  Book  afford 
Absolutely  no  definite  proofs  that  (as  the 
'  German  Goveniment  subsequently  asserted) 
I  Germany  tried  to  pacify  Vienna? 

Why  was  Germany  continually  harping  on 
104 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

the  antagonism  between  Vienna  and  Petro- 
grad,  although  it  was  perfectly  clear  that  the 
difficulty  was  not  at  Petrograd,  but  at  Vienna, 
and  that  Russia  could  not  negotiate  until 
Vienna  had  adopted  a  more  conciliatory  atti- 
tude? 

Why  does  the  German  White  Book  (p.  9) 
expressly  declare  that  Germany  approved  the 
principle  of  Grey's  proposal  for  a  conference 
of  the  four  Powers,  while  it  makes  no  men- 
tion of  the  fact  that  the  Triple  Entente  were 
prepared  to  embody  this  principle  in  any 
form  that  Germany  might  desire? 

Why  does  the  German  WTiite  Book  omit  the 
Czar's  telegram  of  July  29th,  in  which  the 
latter  makes  the  proposal  to  the  German 
Emperor  that  the  Austro-Serbian  dispute 
should  be  laid  before  the  Court  of  Arbitration 
at..TheJIague? 

Why  was  this  important  proposal  neither 
answered  by  the  Gen3iail.-Gi?j^finiment  nor 

Why  did  not  the  German  Chancellor  an- 
105 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

swer  Grey's  mvitation  (English  Blue  Book, 
No.  101)  appealing  for  such  a  joint  effort 
in  the  interest  of  peace  as  had  proved  effec- 
tive in  the  late  Balkan  crisis  1 

Why  did  Germany  proclaim  that  the  situa- 
tion threatened  a  danger  of  war,  and  why 
did  she  dispatch  to  Russia  on  July  31st  a  12- 
hour  ultimatum,  at  a  moment  when  the  dip- 
lomatic negotiations  were  still  in  full  progress 
and  the  world  in  general  had  gained  the  im- 
pression that  things  had  taken  a  turn  for  the 
better? 

"Why  did  Germany,  on  July  31st,  demand 
from  Russia  a  demobilisation,  while  she  did 
not  make  the  same  demand,  at  any  rate  in  a 
modified  form,  of  her  Austrian  ally,  although 
she  knew  that  the  latter  had  likewise  mo- 
bilised on  the  morning  of  July  31st,  and  thus 
might  be  quite  sure  in  advance  that  Russia 
would  not  fall  in  with  her  request? 

Why,  above  all,  was  it  Germany  who  made 
this  demand,  and  not  Austria?  Why  did 
Germany,  who  hitherto  had  appealed  so  ex- 
106 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

pressly  for  a  localisation  of  the  dispute,  sud- 
denly interfere  in  it,  thereby  herself  inter- 
nationalising the  struggle  and  to  a  certain 
extent  adopting  an  attitude  more  Austrian 
than  Austria  ? 

These  are  a  few  (but  not  all)  of  the  pre- 
liminary questions  which  '*  J'Accuse,"  on  the 
authority  of  the  official  documents  belonging 
to  the  period  of  the  critical  eleven  days,  puts 
forward  and  examines  before  finally  coming 
to  the  answer  to  the  main  question,  which 
results,  according  to  his  view,  in  a  verdict  of 
''guilty"  on  Germany  and  Austria-Hungary. 

It  is  possible  (and  as  a  German  I  wish  with 
all  my  heart  that  it  may  be  so)  that  *' J'Ac- 
cuse,"  after  the  fashion  of  all  public  prose- 
cutors, has  only  gathered  from  the  official 
documents  just  what,  as  a  result  of  his  politi- 
cal views,  he  wanted  to  gather  from  them. 
But  this  can  only  be  proved  against  him  by 
means  of  no  less  convincing  documents  and 
no  less  convincing  methods  and  reasoning 
107 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

than  those  upon  which  he  bases  his  accusa- 
tions.^ 

'In  reply  to  a  question  of  the  deputy  Liebknecht,  in  the 
session  of  the  Eeichstag  of  December  14th,  1915,  whether 
the  Government  was  willing  to  produce  the  official  docu- 
ments having  relation  to  the  outbreak  of  the  War,  and  to 
institute  a  parliamentary  Commission  of  Inquiry,  the  Secre- 
tary of  State,  von  Jagow,  with  the  approval  of  the  House, 
made  the  following  statement:  "The  Government  does  not 
intend  to  recommend  the  institution  of  a  parliamentary 
Commission  of  Inquiry.  The  responsibility  and  the  expiation 
concern  only  our  opponents." 

We  do  not  understand.  In  more  than  one  quarter  the 
German  Government  is  accused  of  being  responsible  for  the 
War;  for  seventeen  months  she  has  been  asserting  her  inno- 
cence, and  declaring  over  and  over  again  that  Germany  was 
the  victim  of  a  treacherous  attack,  and  that  she  is  waging 
a  sacred  war  of  self-defence.  And  yet  now  she  indignantly 
repudiates  the  proposal  for  a  serious  investigation  I  Herr 
von  Jagow  ought  to  realise  that  it  is  not  sufficient  to  keep 
on  merely  asserting  the  guilt  of  the  enemies  of  Germany; 
this  guilt  has  got  to  be  proved  by  documentary  evidence. 
The  dogmatic  tone  in  which  the  German  Minister  has  de- 
claimed all  too  frequently  concerning  the  guilt  of  others, 
the  bluntness  with  which  he  has  refused  any  closer  investi- 
gation into  the  question  of  guilt,  have  often  produced  in 
neutral  countries  the  painful  impression  of  wilful  evasion 
and  indirect  admission  of  guilt.  We  hope  sincerely  that, 
in  order  to  wipe  out  this  painful  impression,  Herr  von  Jagow 
will  shortly  be  prepared  to  agree  to  the  institution  of  a  Com- 
mission of  Inquiry.  A  man  with  a  clear  conscience  (and 
we  do  not  doubt  that  Herr  von  Jagow 's  conscience  is  clear) 
must  seize  every  opportunity  which  offers  itself  for   the 

108 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

We  have  seen  that  neither  the  professor 
nor  the  academician,  nor  the  neutral  nor  the 
Socialist,  has  seriously  examined  a  single 
one  of  the  questions  brought  forward  by 
^'J'Accuse."  The  same  may  be  said  of  all 
the  other  "answers"  which  have  been  pub- 
lished in  Germany.  The  manner  in  which  the 
authors  of  these  answers  set  to  work  produces 
the  very  unfortunate  impression  that  any 
serious  discussion  of  the  questions  raised  in 
the  book  would  be  painful  to  them,  and  that, 
in  legal  questions,  they  are  incapable  of 
counting  up  to  three.  With  the  pathetic  ges- 
ture of  superiority  of  the  outraged  patriot, 
they  cry  *  *  Shame ! ' '  and  *  *  Murder ! '  *  upon  the 
supposed  traitor  to  his  country,  and  then 

demonstration  of  his  innocence.  One  of  the  most  important 
of  these  opportunities  is  offered  by  a  parliamentary  Com- 
mission of  Inquiry. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  devoutly  to  be  wished  that  the 
German  national  representatives  should  cease  to  clap  their 
approval,  when  the  rules  of  modern  legal  procedure  and  the 
highest  privileges  of  Parliament  are  so  openly  trodden  under 
foot,  as  they  hava  been  by  Herr  von  Jagow  in  this  instanc*. 

109 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

start    composing    their    '' Histories    of   the 
Events  leading  up  to  the  "War." 

Now  an  accused  person  standing  in  the  dock 
may  very  well  be  defended  by  pointing  out  his 
lack  of  education,  his  hereditary  disabilities, 
his  abnormal  way  of  life,  and  other  defects 
of  his  intellectual,  physical,  or  social  condi- 
tion. The  counsel  for  the  defendant  may 
rouse  the  sympathies  of  the  jury  by  a  moving 
description  of  the  wretchedness  of  the  pris- 
oner's family  life,  of  his  hunger,  and  of  the 
desperate  state  of  mind  which  drove  him  to 
the  act.  But  the  judge,  even  if,  after  an 
examination  into  the  antecedent  history  of 
the  prisoner  (which  is  naturally  presented  by 
the  public  prosecutor  in  quite  a  different 
light  from  that  in  which  it  is  presented  by 
the  counsel  for  the  defendant),  he  becomes 
convinced  of  the  presence  of  extenuating  cir- 
cumstances, will  none  the  less  draw  a  very 
sharp  line  between  these  antecedent  circum- 
stances and  the  crime  itself.  He  will  say: 
This  man  contained  within  himself  a  thou- 
110 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

sand  criminal  instincts  and  motives  for  crime. 
Nevertheless,  in  the  legal  sense,  he  was  inno- 
cent up  to  the  day  on  which  he  conmiitted  his 
crime.  We  know  that  within  every  individ- 
ual, within  every  party,  race,  class,  or  nation, 
there  slumber  potentialities  and  elements  of 
crime.  But  if  we  were  to  accept  the  evidence 
of  mere  suspicion  we  should  have  to  take  the 
whole  world  into  custody.  Therefore  it  is  not 
until  it  has  actually  been  committed  that  an 
act  can  be  considered  a  crime  demanding  that 
we  should  take  action  in  the  name  of  public 
peace  and  security. 

Therefore  we  repeat  once  more :  We  do  not 
wish  to  know  either  who  is  the  author  of 
''J'Accuse,"  or  what  are  his  views,  or  how 
his  book  came  into  being;  nor  yet  whether 
this  or  that  State  had  this  or  that  reason  for 
mistrusting  its  neighbour  (the  reasons  are 
thousandfold  on  all  sides).  But  we  do  wish 
to  know  whether  * '  J  'Accuse ' '  resorted  to  any 
dishonest  methods  in  his  analysis  and  valua- 
tion of  the  official  documents  (in  the  third 
111 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

chapter),  or  whether,  on  the  contrary,  his 
accusations  and  arguments  are  legally  sound. 
"We  wish  to  know  who,  in  those  critical  eleven 
days,  actually  committed  the  criminal  act  of 
provoking  the  War. 

Meanwhile  every  other  question  is  a  side- 
issue.  If  it  is  made  clear,  as  the  result  of  an 
unprejudiced  investigation,  either  that  the 
author  of  **J'Accuse'*  was  not  impartial  in 
selecting  his  documents,  or  that  he  gave  them 
a  wrong  interpretation,  then  there  is  still  time 
to  pass  sentence  on  him.  But  until  this  evi- 
dence has  been  secured  we  have  no  right  to 
do  so. 

m. — ^From  what  has  been  said  above,  it 
follows  as  a  matter  of  course  that  any  idea  of 
the  justification  of  a  *' preventive"  war  is 
under  no  circumstances  admissible.  It  is 
surely  a  disgrace  that,  in  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury, there  should  still  be  men  who  can  seri- 
ously and  ''scientifically"  support  this  no- 
tion. And  it  is  a  disgrace  to  us  Germans 
that  countless  German  scholars  should  have 
112 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

come  forward  to  defend  it.  Bismarck  him- 
self, who  knew  the  ins  and  outs  of  these  ques- 
tions, more  than  once,  with  a  clearness  which 
admits  of  no  misunderstanding,  rebuked 
those  criminal  blockheads  who  in  the  'eighties 
appealed  to  him  to  embark  on  a  ** preventive" 
war  against  France. 

But  the  main  concern  of  us  modern  pacifists 
and  democrats  is  this :  In  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury there  ought  no  longer,  under  any  cir- 
cumstances, to  be  two  morals — one  for  the 
people  at  large,  and  the  other  for  the  State 
and  its  princes.  Machiavelli  is  dead,  dead 
finally  and  for  ever!  A  nation,  a  State,  a 
dynasty,  are  at  the  present  day  subject  to  the 
same  moral  notions  and  the  same  laws  as  the 
private  citizen.  They  must  conduct  them- 
selves like  honest  men,  and  if  from  this  stand- 
ard they  are  found  wanting  they  must,  in  the 
name  of  public  peace  and  security,  be  ar-. 
raigned  before  the  court  of  justice  just  like 
any  private  criminal.  They  must  not  be  al- 
lowed to  plead  in  their  defence  any  other 
113 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

reasons  than  those  which  are  valid  in  criminal 
law.  For  at  the  present  day  there  is  no 
longer  any  raison  d'etat,  any  special  law 
applicable  to  the  State  endowed  with  undis- 
puted power  to  overrule  the  standards  of 
ordinary  private  morality.  Any  vestige  of 
it  which  still  lurks  in  diplomatic  documents 
and  in  the  brains  of  certain  scholars  will  be 
finally  exterminated  as  a  result  of  this  War. 
Henceforth  there  will  reign  in  Europe  only 
one  universally  valid  moral  law,  to  which  all 
alike  are  subject — the  king  and  his  dynasty, 
the  citizen  and  his  fatherland. 

Discussions  concerning  divine  rights, 
higher  reasons,  necessities-which-cannot-be- 
named-here,  political  imponderabilities,  spe- 
cial privileges  of  the  supermen — in  short,  the 
whole  mediaeval  lumber  and  rubbish  of  fait  du 
prince,  raison  d'etat,  &c. — are  to  be  ruled 
finally  and  emphatically  out  of  court.  True, 
there  still  exist  a  host  of  learned  bonzes  who 
kneel  before  the  purple  of  the  tyrant,  pre- 
pared to  support  the  ** scientific**  justifiability 
114 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

of  anything  which  their  ruler  may  see  fit. 
True,  there  exists  the  danger  that  these 
''learned  authorities"  on  State  law,  support- 
ed by  the  Press,  the  police,  and  the  rabble, 
may  attempt  to  stifle  the  voice  of  the  national 
conscience  and  to  convert  the  legal  proceed- 
ings into  a  comedy  for  the  diversion  of  their 
masters.  Yet  it  is  to  be  hoped  that,  after 
this  horrible  catastrophe,  all  the  serious 
scholars  and  scientists  of  the  world  will  com- 
bine together  to  close  once  and  for  all  the 
mouths  of  these  reptiles,  for  on  this  point  at 
least  there  must  surely  be  absolute  unanimity 
among  all  the  decent  members  of  the  human 
race.  What  would  be  the  result,  for  instance, 
of  our  admitting  the  plea  of  a  ''precaution- 
ary" measure  as  an  excuse  for  the  declara- 
tion of  war  by  a  State?  All  our  modem 
notions  of  blame,  responsibility,  law,  and  pun- 
ishment would  therewith  collapse  completely. 
For  then  it  would  be  open  to  every  thief  and 
assassin  to  come  forward  with  the  assertion 
that  he  had  been  obliged  to  steal  and  murder, 
115 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

because  he  knew  very  well  that  otherwise  his 
victim  (who  wore  a  revolver  in  his  belt,  be- 
haved in  a  suspicious  manner,  and  so  forth) 
would  have  attacked  him.  Or  some  enter- 
prising *' Captain"  of  Kopenick^  might  or- 
ganise a  robber-band  on  the  plea  that  he  was 
a  superman  with  a  lofty  mission,  and  hence 
not  subject  to  stupid  bourgeois  laws  atfd 
regulations,  which  have  no  application  to  such 
supermen  as  himself. 

A  moment's  reflection  suffices  to  convince 
us  that  the  notion  of  a  '*  preventive '^  war 
passes  into  the  realm  of  phantasy,  and  that, 
if  we  are  to  admit  it  as  a  valid  excuse  for  a 
State,  there  will  cease  to  be  any  question  of 
crime,  but  only  of  acts  committed  either  in 
alleged  self-defence  or  by  alleged  supermen. 

It  is,  as  we  have  said,  a  matter  for  regret 
that,  in  the  twentieth  century,  in  the  father- 

■Kopeniek  is  a  small  town  near  Berlin  where  in  1906  a 
rogue  named  Wilhelm  Voigt  appeared  in  a  captain's  uni- 
form, and,  by  the  mere  effect  of  this  disguise,  overawed  the 
Burgomaster  into  handing  him  crer  the  contents  of  the 
town  treasury.' — Ed. 

116 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

land  of  modem  legal  science,  we  should  still 
be  compelled  to  force  such  self-evident  truths 
as  these  upon  the  attention  of  those  who  deem 
themselves  the  most  distinguished  represent- 
atives of  Germanism.  Will  they  never  under- 
stand that  it  is  they  who  have  earned  for  us 
the  epithet  of  * '  barbarians ' '  ?  Will  the  Bem- 
hardis,  Keims,  Schiemanns,  Gelbsattels,  Rohr- 
bachs,  Reventlows,  Lassons,  Hardens,*  and 

*  Friedrieh  A.  J.  von  Bemhardi,  born  1849  in  Petrograd ; 
an  ex-cavalry  general,  and  author  of  the  now  celebrated 
book,  "Germany  and  the  Next  War." 

August  Alexander  Keim,  bom  1845  in  Hessen,  is  a  retired 
Major-General;  an  authority  on  military  history,  especially 
in  regard  to  Napoleon.  He  was  a  contributor  on  this  subject 
to  the  "Cambridge  Modern  History." 

Dr.  Paul  Rohrbach,  bom  in  Lithuania,  1869,  is  author  of 
a  German  * '  imperialistic ' '  work,  * '  Der  deutsche  Gedanke  in 
der  Welt, ' '  which  has  been  very  widely  read  in  recent  years. 

Ernst,  Graf  zu  E^ventlow,  a  retired  naval  officer,  bom 
1869  at  Husum,  is  an  author  of  some  works  of  importance, 
including  "Die  englische  Se^macht"  (1906).  He  has  been 
well-known  since  the  War  as  an  advocate  of  "  f rightful- 
ness."    He  is  on  the  staff  of  the  Deutsche  Tageszeitung. 

Adolf  Lasson,  Professor  of  Philosophy  at  Berlin,  bom 
1832  at  Altstrelitz,  has  distinguished  himself  since  the  War 
began  by  utterances  so  violent  and  so  arrogpant  as  to  cause 
remonstrances  even  in  Germany.  Herzog  describes  him  as 
a  "zweihundertjahriger  Mummiengreis, "  and  declares  that 

117 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

their  like,  never  feel  ashamed  to  hawk  about 
such  theories  as  these? 

Anyone  who,  like  Herr  Professor  Schie- 
fmann,  has  the  ill-judged  temerity  to  answer 
to  the  book  "J 'Accuse":  ''Admitted,  Ger- 
many did  declare  the  "War,  but  she  was 
obliged  to  forestall  her  neighbours,  since 
otherwise  her  neighbours  would  have  fore- 
stalled her,'*  deserves  to  have  his  house  burnt 
over  his  head  and  then  to  receive  the  derisive 
explanation:  ''What  else  do  you  expect,  my 
good  fellow?  Your  conduct  had  been  rousing 
my  suspicions  for  a  long  time.  You  are  a  sly 
rascal.  Your  house  was  the  resort  of  people 
who  excited  my  disapproval.  Besides  .  .  . 
and  then  ...  as  I  have  said,  I  could  not  wait 
until  the  plot  which  you  had  been  hatching 

his  lectures  on  philosophy  have  long  been  the  mockery  of 
his  pupils. 

Maximilian  Harden  is  the  pen-name  of  a  famous  erratic 
Jewish  journalist,  editor  of  Die  Zukunft.  He  was  born  in 
Berlin,  1861.  His  real  name  is  Max  Witkowski.  He  has 
glorified  the  present  War  expressly  on  the  ground  that  it  is 
a  war  of  aggression  and  conquest  for  the  establishment  of 
a  great  German  Empire. — Ed. 

118 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

against  me  should  be  quite  complete;  I  was 
obliged  to  forestall  you  as  a  measure  of  pru- 
dence. A  collision  between  us  was  bound  to 
come  in  any  case;  it  was  'in  the  air.'  My 
action  was  thus  a  measure  of  self-defence, 
dear  sir,  a  stem  and  absolute  necessity." 

Every  reasonable  man  will  admit  that  such 
logic  as  this  cannot  be  admitted  in  the  pres- 
ent century,  and  that  therefore  it  is  just  as 
vicious  and  outworn  in  its  application  to  a 
State  as  it  would  be  in  the  case  of  a  private 
individual. 

IV. — There  is  a  certain  class  of  very  ad- 
vanced thinkers  who  refuse  to  lay  the  blame 
for  the  outbreak  of  the  War  upon  individuals, 
and  who  take  infinite  pains  to  shift  the  re- 
sponsibility upon  systems,  inner  causes,  ideas, 
tendencies,  higher  powers — ^in  short,  so-called 
**  imponderabilities. "  For  instance,  Dr.  A.  H. 
Fried,^  one  of  the  leading  German  pacifists, 

•  Alfred  Fried,  born  in  Vienna,  1864,  founded  the  German 
Peace  Society  in  1892,  and  is  author  of  many  works  on 
disarmament,  international  arbitration,  and  peace  propa- 
ganda.— Ed. 

119 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

in  his  latest  book,  ''The  Restoration  of 
Europe*'  (''Europaische  Wiederherstel- 
luiig")>  declares  that  the  Wo  rid- War  "was 
the  logical  consequence  of  the  peace  which  we 
then  possessed.*'  Other  pacifists,  especially 
snivelling  theologians,  endeavour  to  hood- 
wink us  with  the  notion  that  we  were  all  to 
blame  for  the  War,  because  we  had  lived  and 
thought  and  worked  in  such-and-such  a  fash- 
ion. Others  again — for  example,  the  Marx 
school  of  Socialists — come  to  us  with  the  ark 
of  the  covenant  of  the  hallowed  Marx,®  and 
declare  that  the  War  was  the  inevitable  re- 
sult of  an  accursed  capitalistic  society.  And 
so  on.  So  many  parties,  so  many  **  impon- 
derabilities," severally  responsible  for  the 
War. 

Thus  these  pacifists  and  Socialists,  with 
varying  degrees  of  lucidity,  and  in  accord- 

•Karl  Marx,  son  of  a  Jewish  lawyer,  was  born  1818  in 
Trier.  He  edited  the  Socialist  paper  Vorwdrts  from  1844 
onwards.  His  work,  "Das  Capital"  (1867),  has  supplied 
modem  Socialism  with  its  theoretic  basis.  He  died  1867  in 
London. — Ed. 

120 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

ance  with  their  several  political  standpoints, 
declare  the  War  to  be  a  moral,  social,  demo- 
graphic, or  some  other  sort  of  necessity  in  the 
world's  history.  Apart  from  the  notorious 
Imperialists  and  a  few  professors  of  theol- 
ogy, who  look  npon  war  as  a  divine  institu- 
tion and,  like  Moltke,  scoff  af  eternal  peace** 
as  a  dream,  **and  not  even  a  beautiful 
dream,"  all  these  people  are  of  one  mind  in 
regarding  the  War  as  a  crime  against  hu- 
manity and  in  insisting  that  its  recurrence 
must  absolutely  be  prevented.  But  since  they 
cannot,  or  will  not,  or  dare  not  conceive  that 
the  War  was  brought  about  by  individual 
men,  they  produce  all  kinds  of  metaphysical 
explanations  for  it,  and  fancy  that  it  would 
be  sufficient  to  alter  the  system,  &c.,  which  in 
their  opinion  generated  the  War. 

There  is  something  about  these  advanced 
German  intellectuals  which  recalls  the  actor 
who  appears  on  the  boards  as  a  hero  directing 
the  movements  of  armies,  while  in  the  privacy 
of  his  home  he  is  only  a  poor  henpecked  hus- 
121 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

band.  Whereas  they  plume  themselves  be- 
fore all  Europe  on  the  boldness  of  their  ideas, 
the  sublimity  of  their  culture,  or  the  pro- 
fundity of  their  erudition,  and  appear  to  be 
directing  all  the  hosts  of  progressives  and 
revolutionaries,  at  home,  in  the  privacy  of 
Fran  Germania's  menage,  they  are  not  per- 
mitted the  tiniest  suspicion  of  a  republican 
idea.  In  the  midst  of  their  "intellectual 
treasures'*  and  the  blessings  of  their  culture, 
they  preserve  a  submissive  silence  on  the 
subject  of  those  private  domestic  miseries  of 
which  they  are  perfectly  conscious,  but  of 
which  they  dare  not  speak  openly.  They  are 
forbidden  to  think  out  to  a  logical  conclusion 
the  possibilities  implied  in  Germany's  still 
feudal  constitution,  for  instance,  to  investi- 
gate its  influence  in  determining  war  and 
peace  as  thoroughly  and  systematically  as 
other  imponderabilities.  Their  objective 
method  of  writing  history  entirely  ignores  the 
fact  that  almost  the  whole  of  German  history 
(with  the  possible  exception  of  the  War  of 
122 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

Liberation)  is  a  history,  not  of  a  nation,  bnt 
only  of  dynasties  J  They  cannot,  or  dare  not, 
perceive  that  throughout  the  world's  history 
the  interests  of  a  dynasty  have  always  been 
in  opposition  to  the  interests  of  the  people. 
Although  the  history  of  Prussia  during  the 
last  hundred  years  furnishes  a  continuous 
chain  of  blatant  proofs  that  the  freedom  of 
the  dynasty  can  never  be  the  same  thing  as 
the  freedom  of  the  people,  they  dare  not  so 
much  as  hint  at  this  axiom,  and  even  fall  into 
a  rage  if  anyone  mentions  it. 

The  consequence  of  this  peculiar  fustian 
heroism  is  seen  in  the  sublime  products  of 
German  scholarship  and  German  intellectual 
gymnastics,  behind  the  resplendent  haze  of 
which  lurks  the  fear  of  Germania's  tyranny. 

*Even  to-day  they  are  still  declaring  that  Germany  ia 
fighting  for  her  freedom  and  culture,  for  the  German  idea, 
for  free  development,  and  other  ideals.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  German  Chancellor  and  the  Norddeutsche  Allgemeine 
Zeitung  replied  to  the  question,  "What  are  the  Germans 
fighting  for?"  with  an  enthusiastic  "For  King  and  Coun- 
try! "  The  whole  world  continues  to  ask,  but  the  learned 
Grerman  progressives  remain  sUent. 

123 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

Even  if  in  their  hearts  they  regard  the  Ger- 
man constitution  and  German  politics  as  ante- 
diluvian institutions,  they  none  the  less  dis- 
cover some  bold  and  progressive-sounding 
foreign  word  which  delivers  them  from  the 
painful  necessity  of  calling  the  thing  by  its 
right  name.  Frau  Germania  may  treat  them 
as  subjects  whose  political  rights  evoke  the 
derision  even  of  Serbian  farm-boys;  they 
only  talk  the  more  loudly  of  their  **  intellec- 
tual treasures"  and  raise  up  yet  more  splen- 
did palaces  of  ideas  in  the  cheerless  desert 
of  aristocratic  and  autocratic  omnipotence. 
When  people  like  Professor  Lasson  assert 
that  we  are  the  freest  nation  in  the  world  be- 
cause we  understand  best  how  to  obey,  they 
fail  to  perceive  that  this  fact  involves  any 
blame.  And  how  desperately  embarrassed 
they  are  if  anyone  inquires  quite  disingenu- 
ously: ''And  the  republic?  Is  it  not  the 
logical  consequence  of  all  your  science,  the 
rational  crown  of  your  culture?  Is  not  the 
republican  form  of  constitution  a  stage  in 
124 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

the  general  ascent  of  humanity!  Can  that  be 
a  fatherland  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word 
where  the  people  do  not  govern  themselves 
and  proudly  and  freely  direct  the  course  of 
their  own  history!"  Either  they  fall  into  a 
rage  at  such  'totally  unscientific"  questions, 
or  else  they  show  signs  of  nervousness,  and 
answer  loud  enough  for  Frau  Germania  to  be 
able  to  hear  it  in  the  kitchen:  ^'Deutschland 
liber  Alles!  It  is  the  HohenzoUems  who  have 
made  Germany  great." 

This  learned  German  wariness  and  circum- 
spection which  for  centuries  has  roused  the 
derision  of  the  whole  world  could  not  resist 
the  opportunity  afforded  by  the  War  for  fa- 
vouring us  with  a  thousand-and-one  meta- 
physical theories  of  its  origin.  The  philo- 
sophical ingenuity  of  our  German  scholars  is 
as  astonishing  as  the  systematic  way  in  which 
they  invariably  avoid  going  to  the  root  of 
things  or  calling  them  by  their  right  names. 
For  to  declare  in  so  many  words  that  war 
is  the  hereditary  trade  of  despots,  and  that, 
125 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

in  the  modem  world,  this  ghastly  trade  can 
only  be  plied  with  the  aid  of  antiquated  con- 
ceptions, such  as,  in  the  case  of  Europe,  only 
survive  in  Russia,  Turkey,  Austria-Hungary, 
and  Germany,  is  forbidden  to  the  representa- 
tives of  German  civilisation.  If,  for  instance, 
the  Haeckels  and  Ostwalds  and  Euckens  ^ 
undertook  to  pursue  their  ^'monism*'  to  such 
an  honest  and  logical  conclusion  as  they  have 
taught  us  to  do  in  the  case  of  religious  and 
cosmic  problems,  they  would  be  forced  to 
admit  that  there  is  also  a  ''dualism'^  in  the 
politics  of  absolute  governments,  and  that  it 
is  just  this  ** dualism"  which  is  more  danger- 

•  Ernst  Haeckel,  Professor  of  Zoology  at  Jena,  was  bom 
1834  at  Potsdam.  His  ' '  Eiddle  of  the  Universe, ' '  in  which 
he  develops  a  monistic  theory,  regarding  matter  as  funda- 
mentally intelligent,  is  well  known  in  England.  He  has 
written  with  exceptional  violence  against  the  Allies. 

Geheimer  Hofrath  Wilhelm  Ostwald,  born  1853,  at  Riga, 
is  a  distinguished  chemist,  and  editor  of  the  Monist.  He 
has  written  much  on  scientific  and  philosophic  subjects. 

Budolf  Eucken,  Professor  of  Philosophy  at  Jena,  was  born 
in  1846  at  Aurich,  in  East  Friesland.  He  received  the 
Nobel  Prize  in  1908.  He  was  regarded  as  the  great  ethical 
teacher  of  modern  Germany,  but  supported  the  attack  on 
Belgium. — Ed. 

126 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

ous  to  the  peace  of  the  world  than  any  na- 
tional antagonisms  or  system  of  armed 
peace.  In  the  same  way,  the  Scheidemanns, 
Siidekums,  Heines,^  and  their  like,  unless  they 
intend  to  pursue  some  ostrich-like  policy, 
must  admit  that  one  single  feudal  constitution 
must  be  in  principle  more  dangerous  to  the 
peace  of  the  world  than  ten  capitalistic  ad- 
ministrations taken  together. 

For  war  is  never  a  ** logical  consequence** 
(as  Dr.  Fried  suggests)  or  a  *' necessary 
result"  (as  the  Marx  school  maintain).  War 
is  a  will.  Not  the  will  of  a  revengeful  God 
nor  of  any  other  supernatural  power,  but  the 
will  to  power  of  individual  men.  This  simple 
truth,  however  "unscientific"  it  may  sound 

•Philipp  Scheidemann,  a  printer  by  trade,  bom  in  Cassel 
1865,  joined  the  Socialist  Party  and  entered  the  Reichstag, 
of  which  he  has  been  Vice-President. 

Albert  O.  W.  Siidekum,  bom  1871  at  Wolfenbuttel,  is  a 
PhiLD.  and  Socialist  member  of  the  Reichstag.  He  is  author 
of  various  works  on  social  subjects,  and  of  "Darwin's 
Leben  und  Lehre,"  1891. 

Wolfgang  K.  W.  Heine,  a  lawyer,  bom  1861  at  Posen,  en- 
tered the  Reichstag  1903.  He  is  author  of  several  juristio 
works,  and  is  a  member  of  the  Socialist  Party. — Ed. 

127 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

to  many  of  my  learned  colleagues  of  the  pen, 
is  none  the  less  the  only  genuine  truth  which 
we  do  possess  in  regard  to  war.  It  is  as  true 
to-day  as  it  was  in  the  time  of  Machiavelli. 
The  exuberant  will  to  power  of  the  few  indi- 
viduals who  still,  by  virtue  of  antiquated  con- 
stitutions, enjoy  an  absolute  political  power 
— that  is  the  vims  of  war.  That  and  that 
alone  has  the  power  to  transform  the  latent 
war-madness  existing  in  certain  classes  of  the 
population  into  an  acute  war-crisis.  It  is 
true,  of  course,  that  the  struggle  of  capitalis- 
tic interests  (as  the  Marxists  assert)  or  na- 
tional ideas  (as  the  ** bourgeois  ideologues" 
declare)  may  help  in  kindling  these  bloody 
conflagrations.  It  is  equally  true  that  certain 
systems  and  tendencies  and  conditions — for 
example,  secret  diplomacy,  a  standing  army, 
corruption  of  the  Press  by  the  caterers  for 
war,  &c. — ^may  help  materially  to  pave  the 
way  for  war.  But  who  can  fail  to  see  that  all 
ttiese  things — capitalism,  chauvinism,  mili- 
tarism; policy  of  expansion,  dreams  of  re- 
128 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

venge,  secret  diplomacy,  &c. — are  harmless 
and  irmoceiit  imtil  some  absolute  despot  has 
the  hardihood — the  criminal  hardihood — ^to 
convert  the  idea  into  a  deed?  It  is  not  im- 
ponderabilities, tendencies  of  the  age,  Gods, 
or  nations  that  set  the  match  to  the  train 
which  leads  to  these  explosives,  but  individual 
men.  The  world's  history  furnishes  abun- 
dant proof  that  the  step  from  the  menace  to 
the  act  of  war  has,  for  the  most  part,  been 
taken  by  ambitious  individuals  who  have 
fished  for  laurels  in  the  blood  of  the  nations. 
The  wars  which  have  actually  been  deter- 
mined upon  by  the  people  themselves,  and 
which,  therefore,  have  been  truly  sacred  wars 
(for  instance,  the  war  of  the  Swiss  Confed- 
eration against  Austria,  the  French  Revolu- 
tion against  Prussia  and  Austria,  and  the 
Prussian  War  of  Liberation),  have  been  de- 
fensive wars  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word. 

In  regard  to  the  present  World-War,  no 
less,  the  whole  world  is  possessed  with  the 
firm  conviction  that  it  was  desired  by  indi- 
129 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

vidual  men,  and  that  at  a  given  moment  it 
lay  in  the  power  of  these  individuals  to  pre- 
vent it.  Up  to  three  days  before  the  War 
large  meetings  were  held  in  Berlin,  Paris, 
London,  Vienna,  and  Petrograd  for  the  pur- 
pose of  protesting  against  the  War,  and  all 
the  most  advanced  individuals  and  newspa- 
pers of  the  whole  world  insisted  with  one 
voice  that  all  the  nations  were  filled  with  the 
unanimous  and  ardent  desire  that  peace 
should  be  preserved.  From  this,  as  well  as 
from  a  hundred  other  circumstances  belong- 
ing to  those  critical  eleven  days,  it  is  evident 
that  the  nations  were  not  swept  into  War  by 
any  supernatural  power  or  other  impondera- 
bility, but  by  men,  men  subject  to  the  same 
physical  appetites  and  needs  as  you  and  I, 
and  who,  by  means  of  their  unlimited  and 
irresponsible  power  over  the  police  and  the 
army,  criminally  overruled  the  clearly  ex- 
pressed desire  for  peace  of  the  nations  con- 
cerned. 
Moreover,  we  must  consider  that  this  op- 
130 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

pression  is  accompanied  at  the  present  day  by 
infinitely  more  hypocrisy  than  was  the  case  in 
antiquity  or  the  Middle  Ages.  For,  up  to  the 
time  of  the  French  Revolution,  war  was  re- 
garded as  the  uncontested  and  uncontestable 
right  of  God-ordained  princes.  The  latter 
waged  war  admittedly  for  private  interests, 
just  as  a  business  man  embarks  on  specula- 
tions which  may  procure  him  advantage.  For 
this  purpose  they  hired  mercenary  soldiers, 
and  they  never  dreamed  for  a  moment  of 
appealing  to  the  patriotism  of  their  subjects. 
They  plied  their  war-trade  like  honest  des- 
pots, and  so  long  as  they  only  enforced  the 
business  of  hacking  and  thrusting  and  shoot- 
ing on  those  who  rendered  these  services 
voluntarily  and  for  pay,  they  had,  after  all,  a 
perfect  right  to  pass  the  time  with  these  war- 
like adventures. 

Modem  wars  are  entirely  differentiated 

from  these  early  wars  by  the  fact  that  they 

involve  the  employment  of  forced   soldiers 

and  of  patriotic  catchwords.    Insomuch  as 

131 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

they  compel  millions  of  men  to  hack  and 
thrust  and  shoot — men  who,  like  you  and  me, 
feel  an  unconquerable  loathing  for  these 
things,  modem  wars  constitute  the  most 
criminal  oppression  of  the  masses  that  has 
ever  taken  place  on  the  face  of  God's  earth. 
It  might  have  been  expected  that,  with  the 
substitution  of  national  armies  for  mercenary 
troops,  with  the  collapse  of  the  old  form  of 
State,  and  with  the  new  ideal  of  the  modem 
constitutional  State,  the  absolute  right  of  the 
ruler  in  the  matter  of  war  and  peace  would 
disappear  and  its  place  be  taken  by  a  popular 
court  of  investigation.  Unfortunately,  this 
was  not  the  case.  It  is  the  most  monstrous, 
the  most  criminal,  the  most  shameful  stain 
upon  our  civilisation  that,  in  spite  of  the  fun- 
damental alteration  in  the  conception  of  the 
State  and  in  the  military  organisation,  in 
regard  to  the  technique  (if  I  may  use  the 
expression)  of  the  causation  and  declaration 
of  war  nothing  has  been  changed.  Now,  as 
before,  the  transition  from  a  latent  to  an 
132 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

actual  state  of  war  depends  upon  the  will  of 
individuals;  that  is  to  say,  these  individuals 
adopt  just  the  same  attitude  towards  that 
'Hriumph"  of  the  modern  world — compul- 
sory military  service  for  all  citizens  in  the 
name  of  a  formerly  unheard-of  love  for  the 
fatherland — as  the  despots  of  the  Middle 
Ages  adopted  towards  their  mercenaries.  In 
this  matter  the  civilised  nations  of  Europe 
have  not  yet  attained  the  right  of  self-govern- 
ment of  the  Red  Indians.  The  Indians  decide 
the  question  of  war  in  a  solemn  war-council, 
in  which  every  member  of  the  tribe  has  a 
seat  and  a  vote.  But  the  civilised  nations  of 
Europe,  although  they  allow  their  Govern- 
ments to  impose  upon  them  universal  mili- 
tary service,  none  the  less  (who  can  solve  thia 
mystery?)  leave  the  decision  in  regard  to  war 
and  peace — just  as  they  did  in  the  Middle 
Ages — to  their  chieftains.  If  the  latter  con- 
sider war  to  be  necessary  (and  even  at  the 
present  day  they  may  be  pursuing  private 
interests  by  this  means !),  it  is  not  until  after- 
133 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

wards  that  they  inform  the  members  of  their 
tribe  that  they  have  resolved  upon  war,  with 
the  subjoined  threat  that  further  discussion 
is  now  not  only  superfluous,  but  would  be 
high  treason,  since  the  Fatherland  is  in 
danger. 

For  all  these  reasons  modem  war  is  not 
only  the  most  terrible  crime  on  the  face  of 
God's  earth,  but  also  (look  at  it  how  you 
will)  the  work  of  individual  men,  who  take 
upon  themselves  the  whole  responsibility  be- 
fore God  and  men,  for  they  have  never  lifted 
a  finger  towards  the  sharing  of  this  terrible 
responsibility  with  their  peoples.^^ 

"In  the  session  of  the  Reichstag  of  December  14th,  1915, 
the  Secretary  of  State,  von  Jagow,  in  reply  to  a  question 
of  the  deputy  Liebknecht,  whether  the  Government  was 
prepared  to  substitute  for  secret  diplomacy  a  foreign  policy 
Bubject  to  the  control  of  publicity  and  to  entrust  the  decision 
concerning  war  and  peace  to  a  national  assembly,  declared, 
with  considerable  asperity,  that  "the  Government  was  not 
prepared  to  propose  such  an  alteration  of  the  constitution 
as  had  been  demanded. ' '  This  is  as  much  as  to  say :  It  is 
a  matter  of  indifference  to  us  what  the  people  want;  the 
Government  alone  is  supreme  judge  in  the  question  of  war 
and  peace.  The  people  wiU  only  have  * '  equal  rights ' '  if  the 
mysterious  meanderings  of  diplomacy  should  chance  to  result 

134 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

Let  us  have  done  once  and  for  all  with  those 
futile  theories  and  grovelling  metaphysics 
according  to  which  war  is  a  necessity  in  the 
world's  history,  a  logical  consequence  or  a 
necessary  result,  and  so  forth,  while  the  peo- 
ple who  resolve  and  declare  it  are  represented 
as  the  helpless  tools  of  higher  powers.  Not 
only  do  we  emphatically  refuse  to  discuss 
such  ''imponderabilities"  and  "incommensu- 
rable factors,"  but  we  declare  flatly  that  all 
those  who  in  the  twentieth  century  continue 
to  make  use  of  such  arguments  as  these  con- 
stitute themselves  the  protectors  and  guard- 
ians of  the  war-fury.  For  by  their  generali- 
sations they  dilute  the  question  of  responsi- 
bility until  any  answer  sufficiently  clear  and 

in  a  war.  Since  Herr  von  Jagow  declines  in  the  name  of  the 
German  Government  to  submit  the  decision  in  regard  to 
war  and  peace  to  the  people  (who,  none  the  less,  now  as 
before,  are  compelled  to  universal  military  service),  it  is 
not  to  be  wondered  at  if  we  pacifists  are  more  determined 
than  ever  in  tracking  down  the  personal  responsibility  for 
the  War.  Von  Jagow 's  harsh  refusal  of  Liebknecht's  sug- 
gestion is  a  proof  that  the  War  has  been,  and  is  intended 
to  remain,  the  private  affair  of  the  Government. 

135 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

definite  to  imply  a  practical  application  is 
rendered  impossible.  It  would  be  difficult  to 
afford  greater  satisfaction  to  the  despots  of 
war  than  by  inventing  the  theory  that  war  is 
not  the  offspring  of  any  human  progenitors, 
but  that  it  has  been  inflicted  upon  humanity 
either  by  the  grace  of  God  or  the  machina- 
tions of  the  devil.  In  such  mystical  certifi- 
cates of  origin  as  these  there  is  implied  an 
indirect  appeal  to  the  war-despots  and  their 
successors  that  they  should  always  keep  in 
mind  their  supernatural  mission,  which  re- 
quires that  now  and  again  humanity  should 
be  steeped  in  carnage,  since  otherwise  it 
would  be  smothered  in  slothful  peace;  and 
there  is,  moreover,  no  question  of  any  per- 
sonal responsibility  for  the  "War. 

/We  have  had  enough  of  such  foul  hocus- 
pocus  ;  we  ask  to  have  done  with  such  paltry 
metaphysics,  which  genuine  reflection  reveals 
as  an  abject  grovelling  before  the  great  ones 
of  the  earth.  We  wish  to  know  who  are 
the  men  who  have  abused  to  such  terrible 
136 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

effect  the  mediaeval  privileges  which,  fhey 
unfortunately  continue  to  enjoy  in  the  modem 
world  in  matters  of  war  and  peace.  By  sum- 
moning and  sentencing  these  men  before  the 
bar  of  justice  we  shall  bequeath  to  our,  and 
their,  sons  a  token  that  from  this  time  hence- 
forth a  new  era  has  set  in,  an  era  of  free  self- 
government  of  free  nations. 

V. — It  is  clear  that,  in  discussing  this  ques- 
tion of  guilt,  eveiy  conventional  patriotic  sen- 
timent and  prejudice  must  be  laid  aside.  The 
wars  of  early  times  only  concerned  two  or 
three  countries,  and  the  question  of  guilt  (if 
it  came  up  for  consideration)  was  the  private 
affair  of  the  individual  nation  concerned, 
which  settled  it  as  it  was  able  or  disposed  to 
settle  it.  The  present  War,  on  the  contrary, 
is  a  European  catastrophe.  Therefore,  the 
question  of  guilt  is  no  longer  a  national,  but 
an  international  concern.  Under  these  circum- 
stances it  would  be  childish  to  attempt  to  con- 
duct the  trial  from  a  German,  French,  Eng- 
lish, Russian,  or  Austrian  point  of  view. 
137 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

Since  the  War  is  European  (indeed,  we  might 
almost  say  universal),  the  inquiry  into  the 
question  of  who  is  responsible  can  only  be 
conducted  *'in  the  name  of  Europe."  Any- 
one, therefore,  who  is  incapable  of  laying 
aside  his  patriotic  prepossessions  while  the 
inquiry  is  in  progress,  on  behalf  of  the  inter- 
ests of  Europe  as  a  whole,  ought  not  to  take 
any  part  in  the  discussion. 

We  are  far  from  joining  hands  with  those 
world-embracing  revolutionaries  who  main- 
tain (or  have  maintained)  that  the  national 
idea  is  a  piece  of  "bourgeois  stupidity,"  and 
that  it  is  all  one  whether  the  workman  be  ex- 
ploited by  a  Russian  Grand  Duke,  or  a  Junker 
from  east  of  the  Elbe,  or  a  republican  poten- 
tate of  commerce,  since  the  exploitation  is  the 
same  in  each  case.  Rather  are  we  convinced 
that  love  of  country  lives  on  in  the  heart  of 
even  the  most  crazy  internationalist,  if  only  in 
the  shape  of  an  inner  partiality,  a  memory  of 
home,  a  constant  reversion  of  his  deepest  and 
most  intimate  thoughts  to  the  land  where  his 
138 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

childhood  was  spent.  But  it  is  a  long  way^ 
from  this  natural  sentiment  to  the  blood-and- 
f ury-breathing  fanaticism  of  the  super-patri- 
ots. It  is  demanded  of  civilised  human  beings 
in  the  twentieth  century  that,  for  the  sake  of 
their  love  for  the  fatherland,  they  should 
transform  themselves  into  infuriated  fanatics 
and  traitors  to  their  own  nature.  We  are 
patriots  in  heart  and  soul,  as  long  as  we  are 
not  summoned  to  renounce  our  own  private 
zeal  for  justice,  truth,  reason,  and  peace. 
That  hinter-Pomeranian  village  magistrate 
who,  for  the  reception  of  exalted  personages, 
hastened  to  garb  himself  as  a  harlequin  be- 
cause some  wag  had  assured  him  that ' '  those 
gentlemen '  *  had  an  extreme  partiality  for  this 
costume,  ought  not  to  be  accepted  as  the 
model  of  a  perfect  patriot.  Patriotism  and  / 
servility  bear  the  same  relation  to  one  another  ( 
as  religion  and  superstition.  It  is  not  to  be 
desired  that  we  should  make  a  fetish  of  our 
Fatherland.  Anyone  for  whom  the  cry  * '  The 
Fatherland  is  in  danger"  signifies  a  summons 
139 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

to  renounce  forthwith  his  critical  faculty,  his 
scientific  caution,  and  his  unbiassed  search 
after  truth,  is  no  true  patriot.  And  anyone 
who  still  finds  words  for  the  deification  of  his 
country's  Government  even  when  that  Gov- 
ernment is  manifestly  at  fault,  even  when  it 
is  manifestly  flouting  all  the  laws  of  humanity 
(such  a  case  is  not  difficult  to  conceive),  is 
no  patriot,  but  a  miserable  slave.  A  Govern- 
ment ought  not  to  be  a  machine  for  dictating 
ideas  to  a  nation.  Was  it  not  a  King  of  Prus- 
sia who  proclaimed  himself  the  first  servant 
of  his  State  ?  We  are  not  the  spiritual  slaves 
of  our  Government,  but  our  Government  is 
the  first  servant  of  the  nation. 

I  have  already  remarked  that  love  of  coun- 
try and  bondage  of  the  mind  are  not  the  same 
thing.  Is  it  possible  that,  in  the  Fatherland 
of  thinkers  and  logicians,  we  are  to  be  denied 
the  right  to  investigate  the  question  of  re- 
sponsibility for  this  World- War  in  just  the 
same  way  as  any  other  question?  Are  we,  in 
order  to  be  esteemed  patriots,  to  exercise  our 
140 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

critical  faculty  and  pursue  our  search  after 
truth  only  on  the  lines  prescribed  by  the 
Government?  Is  it  possible  that,  in  the  twen- 
tieth century,  a  Government  should  dare  to 
pronounce  itself  infallible,  and  to  draw  up 
articles  of  faith  the  non-observance  of  which 
is  to  brand  a  citizen  as  an  **  unpatriotic  scoun- 
drel"? 

This  cannot  and  must  not  be.  For  just 
because  I  am  a  German  I  would  not,  upon  any 
inducement  in  the  world,  set  my  country 
higher  than  truth.  The  man  who  continues 
to  defend  the  Government  of  his  country,  even 
when  that  Government  is  manifestly  guilty 
of  lying  or  brutality,  is  a  fool.  Right  must 
remain  right,  even  if  thereby  all  the  countries 
in  the  world  be  brought  to  ruin. 

The  supreme  duty  of  every  patriot  is  that 
he  should  keep  his  own  courage  highland  as- 
sist in  the  triumph  of  truth  and  right.  Truly 
it  were  a  bad  physician  who,  in  the  middle  of 
an  operation,  should  allow  himself  to  be  over- 
mastered by  physical  nausea,  and  a  cowardly 
141 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

patriot  who  should  try  to  drown  his  fear  of 
disagreeable  revelations  with  loud  yells  of 
** Hurrah!"  The  desire  of  the  true  German 
patriot  is  for  a  noble  and  free  and  peaceful 
Fatherland.  For  him,  Truth  is  no  subject  of 
the  King  of  Prussia,  nor  is  Right  the  dictate 
of  Prussian  State  officials.  He  does  not  garb 
himself  as  a  harlequin  in  order  to  curry  fa- 
vour with  the  great.  He  loves  and  defends  his 
country,  yet  he  does  not  drag  other  countries 
through  the  mire.  He  does  not  renounce  his 
critical  faculty,  but  he  demands  that  his  coun- 
try should  live  in  harmony  with  the  laws  of 
civilisation,  humanity,  and  justice;  for  only 
then  can  he  truly  love  her. 

Therefore  the  true  patriot  will  read  the 
book  **J*Accuse"  to  the  end,  just  like  any 
other  book.  The  reading  will  possibly  cause 
him  pain,  in  so  far  as  it  will  reveal  to  him 
matters  of  which  he  was  ignorant.  But  he  will 
overcome  this  pain.  He  will  examine  dispas- 
sionately the  accusations  and  the  evidence 
which  it  brings  forward,  and  he  will  try  to 
142 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

refute  them.  And  if  it  should  result  that, 
despite  every  official  assurance  to  the  con- 
trary, despite  every  infamy  on  the  part  of 
others,  and  despite  this  or  that  extenuating 
circumstance,  the  thesis  of  the  book  proves 
ultimately  to  be  incapable  of  refutation,  then 
he  will,  with  a  heavy  heart,  but  he  will,  draw 
the  necessary  conclusion,  and  recognise  in  the 
author  of  "J 'Accuse"  that  patriot  who  has 
rendered  the  most  precious  service  to  our 
Fatherland  that  could  be  rendered.  He  has 
proclaimed  the  truth. 

To  the  discussion  of  this  question  of  re- 
sponsibility we  ask  the  German  to  bring  to 
bear  his  most  distinguished  qualities,  his  logic 
and  his  objectivity.  Whoever  should  prevent 
us,  as  free  citizens  of  a  modem  State,  from 
seeking  after  the  truth  in  the  way  that  our 
great  thinkers  have  taught  us ;  whoever,  as  a 
German,  conceives  that,  in  this  most  impor- 
tant of  all  European  questions  of  the  present 
day,  we  should  be  influenced  by  any  consider- 
ations of  respect  or  deference,  whether  to- 
143 


I 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

wards  dynasties,  diplomats,  or  other  human 
powers;  whoever  dares  only  to  discuss  the 
responsibility  for  the  World- War  according 
to  the  prescription  and  by  the  permission  of 
the  German  Government,  that  man  turns  his 
Germanism  into  idiotism,  for  which  the  hon- 
est patriot  can  feel  only  contempt. 

For  mark  well !  there  is  only  one  Truth,  and 
it  is  capable  of  demonstration,  provided,  of 
course,  that  this  demonstration  is  sought,  not 
in  Berlin,  or  Paris,  or  London,  or  Petrograd, 
but  solely  and  exclusively  in  the  name  of 
Europe  and  in  the  prevailing  sense  of  right  of 
the  modem  world. 

VI. — For  the  discussion  of  the  questions 
brought  forward  by  '' J'Accuse"  we  must  re- 
ject the  standpoint  of  mediaeval  or  dynastic 
theories  of  right,  just  as  we  reject  the  pathetic 
folly  of  patriotic  surliness  and  indignation.  I 
have  already  pointed  out  that,  in  the  modem 
world,  there  can  only  be  one  morality  for 
State  and  citizen,  and  that,  for  example,  the 
theory  of  a  ** preventive"  war  is  nothing  else 
144 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

than  a  servile  modernisation  of  the  mediaeval 
bon  plaisir  of  the  despot.  The  trial  must 
therefore  be  conducted  by  duly  authorised 
judges,  and  in  accordance  with  the  methods 
and  the  assessments  proper  to  criminal  cases ; 
it  must  be  conducted  in  the  name  of  Europe 
and  in  the  interests  of  the  general  welfare 
of  Europe.  Not  the  welfare  of  this  or  that 
dynasty,  party,  caste,  religion,  or  world-con- 
ception may  be  allowed  to  serve  as  a  criterion 
of  right  in  this  trial,  but  only  the  general  wel- 
fare of  the  European  nations. 

A  hundred  years  ago  Napoleon,  the  Super- 
man of  War,  was  exiled  to  St.  Helena  because 
he  had  steeped  Europe  for  twenty  years  in  a 
welter  of  blood  and  horror.  But  Napoleon 
was  unfortunately  tried  and  sentenced,  not  by 
the  nations  of  Europe,  but  by  her  princes. 
The  judicial  proceedings  of  the  **Holy  Alli- 
ance ' '  were  conducted,  not  in  the  name  of  the 
general  welfare  of  Europe,  but  in  the  name 
and  for  the  benefit  of  dynasties  who  were  con- 
cerned for  their  own  privileges.  And  since 
145 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

dynasties  never  execute  the  will  of  the  people, 
but  only  the  will  of  Providence,  which  enjoins 
upon  them  that  they  should  stifle  the  pre- 
sumptuous hankerings  of  their  countries  for 
free  self-government,  they  organised  a  Eu- 
rope after  their  own  taste.  They  exiled  a 
great  man,  Napoleon,  in  order  to  make  room 
for  a  dozen  little  men.  They  organised  peace, 
not  as  a  lawful  condition,  but  as  a  donation 
from  God  and  His  earthly  representatives. 
War  remained  suspended  over  Europe,  and 
its  horrors  were  unchained  as  often  and  as 
long  as  these  earthly  despots  gave  the  sign. 
Europe  was  a  chess-board  for  royal  players. 
But  only  in  one  case  did  a  game  end  as  a  game 
of  chess  ought  to  end — with  a  checkmate ;  in 
the  case  of  the  others  it  was  always  a  remis; 
the  men  were  set  up  again,  and  another  new 
game  commenced,  until  finally,  at  the  present 
day,  this  criminal  passion  for  the  game  of 
war  has  caught  in  its  toils  the  whole  of  Eu- 
rope and  has  engendered  the  same  condition, 
the  same  universal  longing  for  deliverance 
146 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

from  war,  as  prevailed  at  the  time  when  Na- 
poleon had  driven  all  Europe  to  despair. 

But  this  time  we  shall  take  care  that  it  is 
no  longer  kings  who  sit  in  judgment  over 
kings,  that  it  is  no  longer  merely  a  case  of 
the  expulsion  of  a  rival  by  dynasties  fright- 
ened for  their  own  privileges.  This  time  it 
will  be  the  nations  themselves  who  will  de- 
cide concerning  their  future.  If,  in  this,  they 
exhibit  no  more  intelligence  than  those  indi- 
viduals who  represented  their  sovereigns  in 
the  year  1815,  if  they  cannot  bring  into  being 
a  reasonable  Europe,  at  any  rate  they  will 
not  have  cause  to  cast  reproaches  on  their 
sovereigns  later. 

In  any  case,  in  the  course  of  this  trial,  an 
entirely  new  language  will  be  employed,  a 
language  hitherto  unknown  to  the  dynasties 
and  their  servants.  For  instance,  our  neutral 
Swiss,  who  in  the  sentence  quoted  above  re- 
ferred to  the  "feeling"  of  William  II.  as  a 
criterion  for  the  policy  to  be  adopted,  would 
meet  with  a  sharp  rebuff  if  he  used  the  word 
147 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

in  this  sense.  In  the  Middle  Ages,  when,  as 
we  have  said,  there  were  neither  conscript  sol- 
diers nor  jeopardised  fatherlands,  the  ''feel- 
ing" of  an  individual  absolute  ruler  may  have 
suflficed  for  bringing  about  a  war.  But,  at  the 
present  day,  when  the  weal  or  woe  of  millions 
and  the  civilisation  of  Europe  are  at  stake, 
the  "feeling"  of  an  individual  must  no  longer 
decide,  but  must  surrender  to  the  feeling  and 
the  will  of  the  people  at  large.  Should  such 
a  ruler,  in  virtue  of  an  alleged  divine  right, 
still  endeavour  to  enforce  his  will,  then  he 
must  b.e  prepared  to  be  called  to  account  be- 
fore the  coming  international  tribunal. 

A  yet  more  typical  example  of  the  mode  of 
discussion  which  must  not  be  employed  in  this 
inquiry  is  furnished  by  the  Norddeutsche  AlU 
gemeine  Zeitung  of  March  26th,  1915.  To  the 
English  accusation  (that  Germany  had  made 
the  War  unavoidable  by  declining  Grey's  pro- 
posal for  a  conference  of  the  four  Powers)  the 
following  answer  is  made:  ''Germany  de- 
clined the  proposal  for  a  conference  because 
148 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

the  affair  in  dispute  concerned  two  Powers 
only,  and  because  it  would  be  incompatible 
with  the  dignity  of  her  Austrian  ally  to  regu- 
late the  measures  which  she  might  find  it  nec- 
essary to  adopt  as  a  defence  against  the 
criminal  intermeddlings  of  a  small  neighbour- 
ing State,  in  accordance  with  the  pleasure  of 
other  Great  Powers  not  concerned  in  the 
quarrel."  *^ 

The  '* dignity"  of  Germany's  Austro-Hun- 
garian  ally  is  a  notion  capable  of  such  in- 
finitely wide  interpretation  that  it  could  never 
be  admitted  as  a  legal  justification.  If  it  is 
compatible  with  the  "dignity"  of  Austria  to 
employ  diplomats  who  have  been  proved 
guilty  of  gross  forgeries  {vide  the  Fried jung 
trial  and  the  Prochaska  case),^^  then  this 

"This  article  practically  amounts  to  a  paraphrasing  of 
the  reason  already  given  in  the  German  White  Book  (No. 
12)  for  the  refusal  of  Grey's  proposal  for  a  conference. 
"  It  is  impossible  for  us  to  drag  our  ally  before  a  European 
tribunal  for  the  settlement  of  her  dispute  with  Serbia. ' ' 

"  The  Friedjung  case  offers  a  parallel  to  the  Parnell  in- 
vestigation in  England.  The  Ban  of  Croatia,  Baron  Eauch, 
had  instituted  a  charge  of  high  treason  against  a  number  of 

149 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

** dignity"  is  certainly  not  incompatible  with 
an  arbitration  by  the  European  Great  Pow- 
ers. What  is  ** dignity"?  Examination  re- 
veals that  there  are  as  many  conceptions  of 
* 'honour"  and  ''dignity"  as  there  are  classes 
and  private  interests.  When  at  the  end  of 
the  fifteenth  century  a  general  peace  was 
proclaimed,  the  robber-barons  declared  that  it 

Croato-Serbian  politicians.  It  was  discovered  that  the  accu- 
sation was  based  on  forged  documents,  and  the  accused  were 
acquitted.  Undeterred  hj  this,  the  eminent  historian.  Dr. 
Fried jung,  repeated  the  charges  in  the  Neiie  Freie  Presse, 
pledging  his  word  as  an  historian  and  expert  in  documents 
that  he  could  produce  written  evidence  of  his  accusations. 
A  libel  action  ensued  (December,  1909),  when  it  was  found 
that  he,  too,  was  relying  on  forged  papers  supplied  by  one 
Vasitch.  (See  "The  Hapsburg  Monarchy,"  by  Mr.  H. 
Wickham  Steed.)  Herr  Prochaska  was  Austrian  Consul  at 
Prigrend  on  the  outbreak  of  the  First  Balkan  War.  Eeports 
of  his  violent  ill-treatment  by  the  Serbians  on  their  entering 
that  town  were  circulated  by  the  Press  Bureau  of  the  Aus- 
trian Foreign  OflSce,  apparently  with  the  object  of  creating 
a  casus  belli  against  Serbia,  These  reports  were  afterwards 
officially  admitted  to  be  wholly  without  foundation,  a  fact 
known  to  the  Foreign  Office  at  the  time  when  they  were  cir- 
culated. The  Arheiter  Zeitung  wrote:  "Who  can  believe 
that  this  unexampled  scandal  will  fail  to  affect  our  inter- 
national position?  .  .  .  The  Prochaska  case  and  its  issue  are 
equivalent  to  a  lost  battle  for  the  Austrian  State."  See 
The  Times,  December  18th,  1912.— Ed. 

150 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

was  incompatible  with  their  dignity  to  aban- 
don their  arms  and  their  feuds  and  to  accept 
the  judgments  of  ordinary  civil  law.  They 
shouted  and  stormed  that  their  good  sword 
was  their  highest  privilege  received  by  them 
direct  from  God.  To  no  purpose.  They  were 
finally  compelled  to  realise  that  the  safety  of 
travelling  merchants  and  the  public  peace  of 
the  country  were  more  important  than  the 
dignity  of  aristocratic  brawlers.  They  were 
obliged  to  submit.  At  the  present  day  it  would 
no  longer  occur  to  any  noble  to  refuse  the 
jurisdiction  of  a  civil  court  on  the  plea  of  hi*? 
peculiar  aristocratic  dignity. 

In  international  life  there  will  be,  there 
must  be,  effected  a  corresponding  revaluation 
of  all  such  traditional  conceptions.  The  *  *  dig- 
nity'* of  Austria,  the  ** prestige"  of  Germany, 
the  "honour''  of  France,  the  ** world-power" 
of  England,  and  other  such  costly  and  quite 
vague  and  intangible  notions,  may  be  worth  a 
great  deal,  a  very  great  deal ;  but  they  are  not 
worth  the  peace  and  tranquillity  of  Europe. 
151 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

When  it  is  a  question  of  millions  of  human 
lives  and  of  thousands  of  millions  of  cultural 
values,  it  may  be  demanded  in  the  name  of 
humanity  that  such  political  imponderabili- 
ties should  for  a  moment  retire  modestly  into 
the  background. 

Truly  the  world-conception  of  the  diplo- 
mats is  strange  and  in  the  highest  degree  dan- 
gerous; they  refuse  to  accept  an  arbitration 
because  the  ** dignity''  of  this  or  that  State 
might  suffer  thereby.  What  would  they  say 
if  a  footpad  were  to  declare  proudly  that  his 
** dignity"  forbade  him  to  accept  the  decision 
of  the  court,  and  that  he  could  not  make  his 
fate  dependent  upon  the  pleasure  of  other 
outside  persons? 

The  editor  of  the  Norddeutsche  Allgemeine 
Zeitung  would  doubtless  burst  into  loud 
laughter  at  such  a  childish  answer.  I  do  not 
say  that  his  answer  to  the  English  accusation 
is  childish,  but  I  venture  to  maintain  that,  if 
anyone,  in  the  morning  light  of  the  twentieth 
century,  refuses  a  conference  which  might 
152 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

safeguard  the  peace  of  the  world,  merely  be- 
cause the  "dignity"  of  a  country  or  of  a 
dynasty  is  in  danger,  his  conduct  is  criminal. 
When  the  whole  of  Europe  is  filled  with  trem- 
bling suspense,  Austria  must  submit  her  dis- 
pute to  the  decision  of  the  Powers  who  are 
not  concerned  in  it,  just  as  any  private  indi- 
vidual does  when  he  submits  a  dispute  with 
his  neighbour  to  the  decision  of  a  court  of 
justice.  If  the  Government  of  a  State  con- 
ceives itself  as  too  exalted  to  accept  the  im- 
partial jurisdiction  of  Europe;  if  it  is  less 
concerned  for  the  weal  or  woe  of  millions  of 
civilised  human  beings  than  for  the  heedless 
pursuit  of  its  own  selfish  interests ;  if,  like  the 
robber-barons  of  the  Middle  Ages,  it  claims 
a  divine  and  irresponsible  right  to  indulge  in 
brawlings  and  feuds,  then,  in  the  name  of  the 
public  peace  and  security  of  Europe,  that 
Government  must  be  brought  to  justice.  For 
is  it  not  true,  dear  reader,  that,  in  our  cen- 
tury, the  dignity  and  welfare  of  Europe  and 
her  civilisation  stand  high  above  any  diplo- 
153 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

matic  notion  of  the  dignity  of  one  of  her 
States? 

To  repeat  once  again :  The  whole  ideology 
and  phraseology  of  incontestable  ''dignity," 
*  *  honour, ' '  * '  special  privileges, '  * '  *  divine  mis- 
sions," &c.,  have  no  application  to  the  mod- 
em world.  We  should  be  forced  to  despair  of 
humanity  if  it  were  incapable  of  getting  rid 
once  and  for  all  of  these  dangerous  tinsel-and- 
trumpery  notions  inherited  from  mediaeval 
despots  and  diplomats. 

We  sincerely  hope  that  the  Norddeutsche 
Allgemeine  Zeitung  may  be  able  in  the  forth- 
coming inquiry  to  bring  forward  other  rea- 
sons for  the  rejection  of  Grey's  proposal.  On 
the  other  hand,  we  confidently  look  forward 
to  a  time  when  German  intellectuals  shall 
cease  to  interpret  the  world  solely  by  refer- 
ence to  dynastic  dictionaries.  After  this  War 
only  the  language  of  international  law  and  of 
national  welfare  based  upon  free  self-govern- 
ment ought  to  be  employed. 


154 


V. 

To  sum  up.  The  book  "J 'Accuse,'*  no 
matter  how  we  may  criticise  its  thesis,  has 
opened  the  debate  on  the  question  of  the  re- 
sponsibility for  the  War.  Since  the  writer 
accuses  the  Government  of  our  country,  and 
since  this  accusation  has  awakened  echoes  all 
over  the  world,  it  is  absolutely  necessary  that 
we  Germans  should  answer  it  with  that  thor- 
oughness and  downright  honesty  which  have 
from  all  time  been  the  pre-eminent  virtues  of 
our  race.  If,  however  (as  has  unfortunately 
been  the  case  till  now),  we  try  to  hush  up  the 
book  or  else  to  smother  it  with  abuse,  this 
proceeding  may  be  taken  to  imply  an  admis- 
sion of  guilt. 

If,  on  the  one  hand,  it  is  urgently  necessary 
that,  on  the  part  of  Germany,  the  thesis  of 
the  book  should  be  dispassionately  and  judi- 
155 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

cially  refuted,  on  the  other  hand  its  signifi- 
cance would  not  end  there.  Rather,  every 
loyal  friend  of  peace  must,  as  a  matter  of 
principle,  participate  in  the  bringing  to  trial 
of  the  instigator  of  the  War.  For  the  debate 
on  the  question  of  guilt  demanded  by  **  J'Ac- 
cuse"  is  the  most  momentous  undertaking 
that  Europe  has  to  accomplish  if  she  means  to 
rid  herself  of  war.  It  is  therefore  urgently 
necessary  that  all  Europe  should  realise  the 
importance  of  such  a  trial,  and  not  be  misled 
by  those  numerous  individuals  who,  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously,  obscure  the  ques- 
tion of  guilt  by  all  kinds  of  learned  theories. 

For  these  reasons,  and  because  it  is  only  by 
the  conduct  of  this  trial  in  accordance  with 
international  law  that  Europe  can  be  safe- 
guarded from  fresh  catastrophes,  it  is  essen- 
tial that  it  should  be  carried  out  in  accord- 
ance with  certain  modem  principles,  namely : 

(1)  War  is  in  the  modem  world  a  crime, 
and  its  instigators  are  criminals  in  the  legal 
sense  of  the  word. 

156 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

(2)  The  crime  under  discussion  was  com- 
mitted during  the  period  between  July  23rd, 
1914,  and  August  1st,  1914;  histories  of  the 
events  prior  to  this  period  afford,  therefore, 
at  the  most  no  more  than  extenuating  circum- 
stances. 

(3)  The  fact  that  an  Imperialistic  war  of 
conquest,  as  the  present  world-catastrophe  is 
declared  to  be  by  **  J'Accuse,"  constitutes  in 
modern  Europe  the  most  gigantic  crime  that 
human  fancy  could  conceive,  needs  no  further 
demonstration  so  far  as  we  pacifists  and  dem- 
ocrats are  concerned. 

But  also  the  mere  notion  of  an  objectively 
necessary  or  subjectively  conceived,  that  is  to 
say,  an  alleged  "preventive,"  war  deserves  to 
meet  with  the  most  summary  rejection  and 
denunciation  as  a  theory  fit  only  for  criminals 
and  would-be  criminals. 

(4)  Emphasis  of  the  fact  that  wars  are 
never  engendered  by  an  immaculate  concep- 
tion, but  by  the  will  to  power  of  individuals. 

(5)  The  putting  on  one  side  of  all  patriotic 

157 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

prepossessions  and  conventional  sentiments. 
Investigation  in  the  name  of  Europe  and  of 
the  universal  moral  sense  of  the  nations. 

(6)  The  welfare  of  the  nations  as  the  sole 
admissible  basis  of  discussion  and  the  su- 
preme goal. 

Only  after  the  resolute  prosecution  of  this 
trial  shall  we  have  a  Europe  capable  of  or- 
ganising such  a  condition  of  public  peace  as 
accords  with  human  reason.  Anyone  who 
strives  to  establish  such  a  condition  without 
having  first  demanded  the  punishment  of  the 
criminal,  anyone  who  is  capable  of  appealing 
for  assistance  in  the  reorganisation  of  Europe 
to  those  who  have  hitherto  declined  to  share 
the  responsibility  for  war  with  their  people, 
is  setting  a  wolf  to  mind  the  sheep  and  con- 
stituting himself  the  protector  of  the  war- 
fnry. 

In  the  name  of  the  millions  who  have  al- 
ready fallen  in  this  gigantic  War,  in  the  name 
of  the  millions  perchance  yet  to  fall,  in  the 
name  of  the  public  peace  and  security  of  Eu- 
158 


BECAUSE  I  AM  A  GERMAN 

rope,  in  the  name  of  the  culture  and  civilisa- 
tion of  our  earth,  in  the  name  of  the  invio- 
lable, unwritten,  and  eternal  right  of  the  na- 
tions, I  demand  this  trial  and  this  punish- 
ment, and  I  demand  them 

Just  becausb  I  am  a  Gebmak. 


159 


^133 


'a 


JC  southern  REG  : 


A    000  673  184    8 


